Exclusive breastfeeding over longer period of duration reduces risk of developmental delays : JAMA

A new study published in the Journal of American Medical Association showed that exclusive breastfeeding for a longer period of time was linked to a lower risk of developmental delays and some neurodevelopmental disorders.

Early infancy is a critical period for addressing potentially changeable elements, such diet, in order to ensure healthy physical and cognitive development. The World Health Organization advises nursing exclusively for the first 6 months of life, then continuing to do so for up to 2 years or longer while consuming nutritious supplemental meals.

To maximize the potential of a child, it is essential to identify and address potentially changeable elements linked to healthy development. Confounding bias must be avoided, and differences in feeding methods must be taken into consideration when examining the results of child growth.

By linking routine developmental surveillance visits in national mother-child health clinics (MCHCs) and national insurance disability entitlements records, this study sought to estimate the relationship between breastfeeding and child development in both early-term to post term (37–42 weeks’ gestation) and late-preterm (35–36 weeks’ gestation) children.

Data from a nationwide network for routine child development surveillance in Israel that is connected to national social insurance financial entitlements for neurodevelopmental deficits were utilized in this retrospective cohort analysis. The participants were children born between January 2014 and December 2020, with at least one follow-up surveillance visit at the age of two or three and at least 35 weeks of gestation without significant morbidity. The delays in reaching developmental milestones and the identification of certain neurodevelopmental disorders were the main results.

Nearly, 20,642 (3.6%) of the 5,70,532 children (291,953 [51.2%] male) were preterm, 38,499 (6.7%) were tiny for gestational age, and 297,571 (52.1%) were breastfed for at least 6 months. When compared to children exposed to less than 6 months of nursing, those who were nursed for at least 6 months showed fewer delays in reaching linguistic and social or motor developmental goals.

Children who were nursed for at least 6 months out of 37,704 sibling pairs were less likely than their siblings who were breastfed for less than 6 months or not at all to exhibit milestone attainment delays or get a neurodevelopmental disorder diagnosis. Overall, persistent breastfeeding was linked to a decreased risk of developmental delays. 

Source: 

Goldshtein, I., Sadaka, Y., Amit, G., Kasir, N., Bourgeron, T., Warrier, V., Akiva, P., Avgil Tsadok, M., & Zimmerman, D. R. (2025). Breastfeeding duration and child development. JAMA Network Open, 8(3), e251540. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.1540