Breastfeeding Can Change Women’s Brains Forever, Study Says

Breastfeeding is a vital connection between a mother and her child, but it can have some negative effects on her body, like bruises on the breasts or back pain. But now studies have also shown that breastfeeding can have an impact on a mother’s brain, improving its health.

Better brain performance after breastfeeding

A study led by researchers at UCLA Health has found that women over the age of 50 who had breastfed their babies performed better on cognitive tests compared to women who had never breastfed. The findings suggest that breastfeeding may have a positive impact on postmenopausal women’s cognitive performance and could have long-term benefits for the mother’s brain.

The researchers ran two trials with 115 women and gave them cognitive tests to analyze their learning, delayed recall, executive functioning, and processing. Women who had breastfed performed better in all four categories.

The longer, the better?

They also found that the amount of time spent breastfeeding improved their brain health. Women who breastfed for the longest lengths of time, particularly those who continued with it after the first 12 months of their child’s life, had the highest cognitive test scores.

Other benefits of breastfeeding for the mothers

Breastfeeding can have other benefits for the mothers:

• It can help to recover from childbirth more quickly and easily.
• Breastfeeding produces the hormone oxytocin. Oxytocin helps the uterus contract after delivery, which helps it return to its normal size and reduces bleeding after delivery.
• Women who breastfeed seem less likely to develop postpartum depression, compared to mothers who wean early or do not breastfeed. Breastfeeding mothers also report reductions in anxiety, negative mood, and stress when compared to formula-feeding mothers.
• It can also lower the risk of ovarian and breast cancer, high blood pressure, arthritis, high blood fats, heart disease, and type 2 diabetes.
• Breastfeeding may help in losing weight. It burns more calories, and after 3 months of lactation, mothers are likely to experience an increase in fat burning compared to non-lactating mothers.

And of course, breastfeeding has several great benefits for children too, as you can read in our next article: What Can Happen to Your Baby If You Breastfeed Exclusively, According to Studies.