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Increased breast-feeding during the first months of life appears to raise a child's verbal IQ, according to a study of nearly 14,000 children that was released Monday.
The study in Archives of General Psychiatry found that 6-year-olds whose mothers were part of a program that encouraged them to breast-feed had verbal IQs that were an average of 7.5 points higher than those of children in a control group.
The researchers said that their findings suggested that the longer an infant is exclusively fed breast milk, the greater the IQ improvement.