Breastfeeding may lower risk of ADHD later in life

TEL AVIV, Israel, July 23 (UPI) -- Children who are breastfed may have less risk of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, researchers in Israel suggest.

Dr. Aviva Mimouni-Bloch of Tel Aviv University's Sackler Faculty of Medicine and Loewenstein Hospital and colleagues completed a retrospective study on the breastfeeding habits of parents of three groups of children: a group that had been diagnosed with ADHD; siblings of those diagnosed with ADHD; and a control group of children without ADHD and lacking any genetic ties.

The study, published in the Breastfeeding Medicine, found a clear link between rates of breastfeeding and the likelihood of developing ADHD, even when typical risk factors were taken into consideration.

Children who were bottle-fed at 3 months were found to be three times more likely to have ADHD than those who were breastfed during the same period, the study said.

At 3 months, only 43 percent of children in the ADHD group were breastfed compared with 69 percent of the sibling group and 73 percent of the control group. At 6 months, 29 percent of the ADHD group was breastfed, compared with 50 percent of the sibling group and 57 percent of the control group.