(May 5, 2008 - Insidermedicine) Breastfeeding infants exclusively early on and continuing to breastfeed for up to one year may help promote children's intellectual development, according to research published in this month’s issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.

Here are some recommendations to help your breastfeeding experience be a positive, successful one:

•    If possible, ask that your newborn remain with you, in direct skin-to-skin contact, from the moment he or she is born until completing his or her first feeding.

•    Avoid using a pacifier until your infant’s breastfeeding is well established.

•    Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Difficulty and pain with breastfeeding can often be improved or eliminated with a little training. Don’t expect that you will “naturally” know how to breastfeed. It is a skill that needs to be learned.

Researchers out of McGill University and the Montreal Children’s Hospital enlisted 31 maternity clinics to participate in a study in which half adopted a program that promotes breastfeeding and the other half continued their regular practices over an 18 month study period. During this time, over 7,000 women and their infants attended clinics promoting breastfeeding and nearly as many attended clinics that maintained their regular practices.

While over 40% of the women who attended the clinics that supported breastfeeding went on to exclusively breastfeed their children for at least three months and continue to breastfeed for at least a year, only about 6% of those who attended the other clinics did so. At the age of 6.5, the children in the breastfeeding group scored higher on tests of verbal, nonverbal, and overall intelligence, compared with those in the nonbreastfeeding group. Their teachers also gave them higher scores with respect to their reading and writing abilities.

Today’s research highlights yet another potential benefit of breastfeeding: enhanced intellectual development of young children. While there are components of breastmilk that may help explain this phenomenon, it remains unclear whether is it the breastmilk itself or simply the physical and social experience of being breastfed that has the most impact on intellectual development.