A lot of people are aware that there are certain health benefits that babies receive when they are breastfed, as well as some short term benefits for the breastfeeding mother. Now, a new study is showing that there could be some long-term benefits for mom as well. These could last even years after our babies have grown up.
A study by UCLA health has shown that women over 50 who breastfed their babies were able to perform higher on cognitive tests than women who never breastfed at all. Molly Fox, lead author of the study, which was published in Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health, shared: “While many studies have found that breastfeeding improves a child’s long-term health and well-being, our study is one of very few that has looked at the long-term health effects for women who had breastfed their babies.” Fox continued: “Our findings, which show superior cognitive performance among women over 50 who had breastfed, suggest that breastfeeding may be neuroprotective’ later in life.” The cognitive tests were designed to measure learning, executive functioning, processing speed, and delayed recall.