Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
PLoS One. 2024 Mar 27;19(3):e0297216. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0297216. eCollection 2024.
Recent studies found positive effects of breastfeeding on the child's cognitive ability and educational outcomes even when adjusting for maternal cognitive ability in addition to a large number of other potential confounders. The authors claimed an important role of breastfeeding for the child's cognitive scores. However, it is well known that error in the measurement of confounders can leave room for residual confounding. In the present reanalyses, we found incongruent effects indicating simultaneous increasing and decreasing effects of breastfeeding on the child's cognitive ability and educational outcomes. We conclude that findings in the reanalyses may have been due to residual confounding due to error in the measurement of maternal cognitive ability. Consequently, it appears premature to assume a genuine increasing effect of breastfeeding on the child's cognitive ability and educational outcomes and claims in this regard may be challenged.
最近的研究发现，即使在调整了母亲的认知能力以及大量其他潜在混杂因素后，母乳喂养对儿童的认知能力和教育成果仍有积极影响。作者声称母乳喂养对儿童的认知评分起着重要作用。然而，众所周知，混杂因素测量中的误差会留下残余混杂的空间。在本次重新分析中，我们发现了不一致的影响，表明母乳喂养对儿童的认知能力和教育成果同时存在增加和减少的影响。我们得出结论，重新分析中的结果可能是由于测量母亲认知能力时的误差导致残余混杂所致。因此，假设母乳喂养对儿童认知能力和教育成果有真正的积极影响还为时过早，在这方面的主张可能会受到挑战。
