All About Your Child

I love news like these!

A new study in Washington provides some of the best evidence to date that breast-feeding can make children smarter, an international team of researchers said on Monday.

Children whose mothers breast-fed them longer and did not mix in baby formula scored higher on intelligence tests, the researchers in Canada and Belarus reported.

……At 3 months, 73 percent of the babies in the breast-feeding encouragement group were breast-fed, compared to 60 percent of the other group. At 6 months, it was 50 percent versus 36 percent.In addition, the group given encouragement was far more likely to give their children only breast milk. The rate was seven times higher, for example, at 3 months.

The children were monitored for about 6 1/2 years.

The children in the group where breast-feeding was encouraged scored about 5 percent higher in IQ tests and did better academically, the researchers found.

Previous studies had indicated brain development and intelligence benefits for breast-fed children.

But researchers have sought to determine whether it was the breast-feeding that did it, or that mothers who prefer to breast-feed their babies may differ from those who do not.

The design of the study — randomly assigning babies to two groups regardless of the mothers’ characteristics — was intended to eliminate the confusion.

‘MOTHERS WHO BREAST-FEED … ARE DIFFERENT’

“Mothers who breast-feed or those who breast-feed longer or most exclusively are different from the mothers who don’t,” Dr. Michael Kramer of McGill University in Montreal and the Montreal Children’s Hospital said in a telephone interview.

“They tend to be smarter. They tend to be more invested in their babies. They tend to interact with them more closely. They may be the kind of mothers who read to their kids more, who spend more time with their kids, who play with them more,” added Kramer, who led the study published in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry.

(That’s me, that’s me….)

…..The researchers measured the differences between the two groups using IQ tests administered by the children’s pediatricians and by ratings by their teachers of their school performance in reading, writing, math and other subjects.

Both sets of scores were significantly higher in the children from the breast-feeding promotion group.

Kramer said how breast-feeding may make children more intelligent is unclear.

“It could even be that because breast-feeding takes longer, the mother is interacting more with the baby, talking with the baby, soothing the baby,” he said. “It could be an emotional thing. It could be a physical thing. Or it could be a hormone or something else in the milk that’s absorbed by the baby.”

……Previous studies have shown babies whose mothers breast-fed them enjoy many health advantages over formula-fed babies.

These include fewer ear, stomach or intestinal infections, digestive problems, skin diseases and allergies, and less risk of developing high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity. Read full report here…. (the report was removed from the Internet.)

Hey, non-1st time Mommies out there who have been giving excuses to breast-feed your baby, its time to change your mindset now!

Its true, at least for my boys. Keatkeat didn’t get much because of my MIL’s 8 unreasonable Objections to breastfeeding, but when I insisted on breastfeeding when I had Binbin, I see that Binbin’s mental and physical development IS truly more amazing!

Ever had preference over this? There was a report on Friday in Singapore Straits Times and these few days on Yahoo on Mother’s diet can help determine sex of child: Study.

The key-points in the article….

….a hearty breakfast laced with sugar to boost a woman’s chances of conceiving a son….Likewise, a low-energy diet that skimps on calories, minerals and nutrients is more likely to yield a female of the human species….

…..Beside racking up a higher calorie count, the group who produced more males were also more likely to have eaten a wider range of nutrients, including potassium, calcium and vitamins C, E and B12.

The odds of an XY, or male outcome to a pregnancy also went up sharply “for women who consumed at least one bowl of breakfast cereal daily …..

…..This research may help to explain why in developed countries, where many young women choose low calorie diets, the proportion of boys is falling…..The study’s findings, she added, could point to a “natural mechanism” for gender selection.

….While the mechanism is not yet understood, it is known from in vitro fertilisation research that higher levels of glucose, or sugar, encourage the growth and development of male embryos while inhibiting female embryos.

This has always been the question of “Do you actually have the right to choose? Whether you are getting a son or daughter is entirely based on God’s decision….”

I was the extreme I guess. Ever since I knew that getting a boy or girl is about X and Y, I believe that science do have its way of creating your ideal gender for your child. So I didn’t plan to start my baby-manufacturing-factory till I found a way to almost guarantee me a BOY!

I love boys! There are less worries, much less worries than when you have girls. For girls, you have to worry about their features, their mannerisms (do not sit with you legs open when wearing a skirt)….when they are in their teens, you worry about them staying out late, when they have boyfriends, you worry if they have already done it….blah blah blah…

There are also more cost involved for girls…their hair-clips, their dresses, their makeups, their jewellery, their shoes….but of cos’ everyone has been telling me that girls are still closer-to-the-heart even after they grew up, unlike boys who often say, “give me my space…” when they were only in their teens.

Anyhow, I still prefer boys. With Allan and I being so much like big kids, we can play ‘rough’ and go crazy without worrying, if they became too boyish unlike if we had girls.

So I read up! Bought this book, right after Allan proposed to me….it focuses more on diet than anything else.

But IT IS NOT COMPLETELY ACCURATE TOO, I realise. Until THE FOLLOWING HAPPENED: –

My regular customer, when I was running my bubble tea business, who became my dear friend now, paid over S$400 for a seminar on this.

Like me, she also prefers boys more than girls, but for a different reason. Being Chinese, boys are the ones who carry-on the surname, so they are more “treasured” than girls.

The speaker had a very unique method that guaranteed up to 99% of getting the gender you want. This S$400 seminar reveals the ideal position, the food to eat and most importantly when to do it. Ain’t I lucky, she shared with me for free!

Well I have 2 boys now and I credit it to this method. Unfortunately, my friend insisted that I DO NOT tell anyone else unless, she get some credit for it, or she will feel the pinch of paying S$400, while others get it for free…..SORRY girls!

My wish was to have 4 kids, 2 boys first and then 2 girls….but as most of you have read the post on how mentally stressed I am, I guess I won’t be making this 4-kids-in-the-family dream come true…*sigh*