Feeding babies on demand improves their IQ: Study

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDMar 20 2012

A new study shows that who are fed when they are hungry - with breast milk or formula - achieve higher scores in Sats tests at ages five, seven, 11 and 14, and that by the age of eight they have an IQ four to five points higher. However, mothers who keep to scheduled feeding times score better on wellbeing measures, and report feeling more confident and less tearful.

Researchers from the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Essex and Oxford University believe they are the first to conduct a large-scale study into the effects of scheduled versus on-demand feeding.

The researchers analyzed data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). The team used a sample of 10,419 children born in the early 1990s, and took into account a range of background factors, including parental educational levels, family income, a child's sex and age, maternal health and parenting styles. The research compared babies fed to a schedule at four weeks of age with those whose mothers tried but did not manage to feed to a schedule, and with those who were fed on demand.

Based on their responses, the children were classified as being one of the following -

1. schedule fed
2. attempted schedule fed
3. demand fed

Researchers then collected data for several outcomes that included maternal wellbeing, which was measured when the child was between the ages of eight weeks and two years, nine months old (33 months). Measures included sleep sufficiency, maternal confidence, maternal enjoyment and postnatal depression. Child cognitive development was measured using IQ scores when the children were eight years old. Academic attainment was measured using the Standard Attainment Test (SATs) given to them at school at ages 5, 7, 11 and 14 years.

Dr Maria Iacovou, from the ISER, who led the research, said, “The difference between schedule and demand-fed children is found both in breast-fed and in bottle-fed babies. The difference in IQ levels of around four to five points, though statistically highly significant, would not make a child at the bottom of the class move to the top, but it would be noticeable. To give a sense of the kind of difference that four or five higher IQ points might make, in a class of 30 children, for example, a child who is right in the middle of the class, ranked at 15th, might be, with an improvement of four or five IQ points, ranked higher, at about 11th or 12th in the class.”

The children of mothers who had tried but failed to feed to a schedule were found to have similar higher levels of attainment in Sat tests and IQ scores as demand-fed babies. Iacovou said, “This is significant because the mothers who tried but did not manage to feed to a schedule are similar to schedule-feeding mothers. They tend to be younger, more likely to be single, more likely to be social tenants and likely to be less well-educated or to read to their child. These social characteristics are all understood to increase a child's likelihood of performing less well. It seems that it is actually having been fed to a schedule, rather than having the type of mother who attempted to feed to a schedule (successfully or not), which makes the difference.”

The study was published in the European Journal of Public Health.