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Results From the PROBIT Breastfeeding Trial May Have Been Overinterpreted
Geoff Der, MA, MSc;
G. David Batty, PhD;
Ian J. Deary, PhD, FRCPE
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The Promotion of Breastfeeding Intervention Trial (PROBIT) study of infant feeding and childhood IQ1 is impressive, not least because it brings the benefits of randomization to an area where it was not previously thought feasible or even ethical. However, it may not be the last word on breastfeeding and IQ.
The headline result is a difference in verbal IQ between the experimental and control groups of 7.5 points. This is half a standard deviation and, therefore, a very substantial effect. But is it plausible? We believe it is not.
First, it is not supported by the other effects, which are all much smaller and have confidence intervals that include zero (ie, no impact). It is not even consistent with the other measures of verbal ability. The difference in verbal IQ estimated from the audit (quality control) sample . . . [Full Text of this Article]
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Breastfeeding and Child Cognitive Development: New Evidence From a Large Randomized Trial
Michael S. Kramer, Frances Aboud, Elena Mironova, Irina Vanilovich, Robert W. Platt, Lidia Matush, Sergei Igumnov, Eric Fombonne, Natalia Bogdanovich, Thierry Ducruet, Jean-Paul Collet, Beverley Chalmers, Ellen Hodnett, Sergei Davidovsky, Oleg Skugarevsky, Oleg Trofimovich, Ludmila Kozlova, Stanley Shapiro, and for the Promotion of Breastfeeding Intervention Trial (PROBIT) Study Group
Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2008;65(5):578-584.
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