Breast-Fed Kids Likely To Succeed Socially

Not only does breastfeeding provide essential sustenance to newborns, but it also may help kids succeed socially, maybe even more than their parents, according to Live Science.

A study of 34,000 people in the U.K. found that breastfeeding increases the chance of moving up the social ladder by 24 percent and reduces the chance of going down by 20 percent. Focusing on people born in either 1958 or 1970, researchers compared their social class at age 33 or 34 with that of their fathers around the same age and found that those who were breast-fed as children were more likely to have a higher social status than their fathers.

The results suggest that breast-feeding improves neurological development, resulting in better cognitive abilities, which nurture social skills. Breast-fed children also showed fewer signs of emotional stress. Previous research has linked skin-to-skin contact between a mother and child to mother-child bonding and reduced stress.