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Infant feeding: the effects of scheduled vs. on-demand feeding on mothers’ wellbeing and children’s cognitive development.
- Source :
-
European Journal of Public Health . Feb2013, Vol. 23 Issue 1, p13-19. 7p. - Publication Year :
- 2013
-
Abstract
- Background: Many popular childcare books recommend feeding babies to a schedule, but no large-scale study has ever examined the effects of schedule-feeding. Here, we examine the relationship between feeding infants to a schedule and two sets of outcomes: mothers’ wellbeing, and children’s longer-term cognitive and academic development. Methods: We used a sample of 10 419 children from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, a cohort study of children born in the 1990s in Bristol, UK. Outcomes were compared by whether babies were fed to a schedule at 4 weeks. Maternal wellbeing indicators include measures of sleep sufficiency, maternal confidence and depression, collected when babies were between 8 weeks and 33 months. Children’s outcomes were measured by standardized tests at ages 5, 7, 11 and 14, and by IQ tests at age 8. Results: Mothers who fed to a schedule scored more favourably on all wellbeing measures except depression. However, schedule-fed babies went on to do less well academically than their demand-fed counterparts. After controlling for a wide range of confounders, schedule-fed babies performed around 17% of a standard deviation below demand-fed babies in standardized tests at all ages, and 4 points lower in IQ tests at age 8 years. Conclusions: Feeding infants to a schedule is associated with higher levels of maternal wellbeing, but with poorer cognitive and academic outcomes for children. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
- Subjects :
- *ACADEMIC achievement
*BREASTFEEDING
*CHILD development
*COGNITION in children
*COMPARATIVE studies
*CONFIDENCE
*MENTAL depression
*INFANT nutrition
*INTELLIGENCE tests
*LONGITUDINAL method
*EVALUATION of medical care
*MULTIVARIATE analysis
*RESEARCH funding
*SLEEP deprivation
*LOGISTIC regression analysis
*SECONDARY analysis
*WELL-being
*EDINBURGH Postnatal Depression Scale
*ATTITUDES of mothers
*REPEATED measures design
*STATISTICAL models
*DESCRIPTIVE statistics
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 11011262
- Volume :
- 23
- Issue :
- 1
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- European Journal of Public Health
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 85215264
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/cks012