Study: Breastfed babies get higher grades in school

I should probably have saved this story for a "Friday off-beat" news item, but I figured some of us could use a Tuesday diversion.

Reuters Life! (honestly, I have trouble trusting news sources with exclamation points in their name) ... anyway, Reuters Life! reports:

Breastfed babies seem more likely to do well at high school and to go on to attend college than infants raised on a bottle, according to a new U.S. study.

Professors Joseph Sabia from the American University and Daniel Rees from the University of Colorado Denver based their research on 126 children from 59 families, comparing siblings who were breastfed as infants to others who were not.

By comparing siblings, the study was able to account for the influence of a variety of difficult-to-measure factors such as maternal intelligence and the quality of the home environment.

The study, published in the Journal of Human Capital, found that an additional month of breastfeeding was associated with an increase in high school grade point averages of 0.019 points and an increase in the probability of college attendance of 0.014.

Frankly, those infinitesimal gains don't impress me. They seem well within the margin of error. But hey, a study that promotes breast feeding as good thing? That's fine with me. Especially considering what passes for "health news" these days.