Fig 1.
Association between breastfeeding duration and cognitive development among children from the UK Millennium Cohort Study.
Fig 2.
Directed acyclic graph used for the evaluation of the association between breastfeeding duration and cognitive development.
Fig 3.
Flowchart of study participants included in the analysis, UK Millennium Cohort Study.
*Those not present at age 14 were excluded because data for maternal cognitive scores were assessed during that evaluation. **Data missing for the analysis of verbal scores.
Table 1.
Characteristics of the participants according to BF duration, UK Millennium Cohort Study (n = 7,855).
Fig 4.
Association between breastfeeding duration (any breastfeeding) and standardised cognitive verbal scores (mean: 0; SD: 1)between ages 5 and 14, UK Millennium Cohort Study (n = 7,855).
All categories of BF duration are compared to “Never breastfed” as the reference category. Model 1: Adjusted for gestational age at birth, maternal ethnicity and languages spoken in household. Model 2: Adjusted for Model 1 + Socioeconomic position (maternal education and highest social class in household). Model 3: Adjusted for Model 2 + other confounding factors (older siblings in household, maternal age, mother working outside the home, partnership status, and maternal smoking during pregnancy). Model 4: Adjusted for Model 4 + Maternal cognitive score.
Fig 5.
Association between breastfeeding duration (any breastfeeding) and standardised cognitive spatial scores (mean: 0; SD: 1) between ages 5 and 11, UK Millennium Cohort Study (n = 7,582).
All categories of BF duration are compared to “Never breastfed” as the reference category. Model 1: Adjusted for gestational age at birth, maternal ethnicity and languages spoken in household. Model 2: Adjusted for Model 1 + Socioeconomic position (maternal education and highest social class in household). Model 3: Adjusted for Model 2 + other confounding factors (older siblings in household, mother working outside the home, partnership status, maternal alcohol use during pregnancy and smoking during pregnancy). Model 4: Adjusted for Model 3 + Maternal cognitive score.
Fig 6.
Comparison of the coefficients for breastfeeding duration, markers of socioeconomic position and maternal cognitive scores on verbal and spatial cognitive outcomes* at ages 14 and 11, respectively.
The models adjusted for all potential confounders of the association between breastfeeding duration and cognitive scores, and include an interaction between breastfeeding duration and age of outcome measurement. *Standardised maternal cognitive scores (Mean: 0; SD: 1).