Related Experiment Video

Updated: Sep 18, 2025

Author Spotlight: Implications of Non-Nutritive Sucking on Speech Emergence and Infant Development
06:19

Author Spotlight: Implications of Non-Nutritive Sucking on Speech Emergence and Infant Development

Published on: April 19, 2024

893

Relationship Between Breastfeeding Duration and Exclusivity on Various Language Milestones in United States Children

Malika Goel1, Sowmya Jayachandran2, Sandhya J Kadam3

  • 1Department of Pediatrics, University of California, San Franciso, CA 94143, USA.

Children (Basel, Switzerland)
|June 26, 2025
PubMed

Insights

Breastfeeding is linked to better language development in children aged 3-5. Children who were breastfed, especially exclusively, showed stronger language milestones and school readiness indicators compared to those never breastfed.

Area of Science:

  • Pediatrics
  • Developmental Psychology
  • Public Health

Background:

  • Breastfeeding is associated with positive developmental and cognitive outcomes.
  • Mechanisms include psychosocial, environmental, and nutritional factors like docosahexaenoic acid.
  • Limited research exists on individual language milestones and school readiness in a nationally representative sample of 3-5 year olds.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To analyze the association between breastfeeding and language milestones in children aged 3-5 years.
  • To investigate the relationship between breastfeeding duration/exclusivity and school readiness indicators.
  • To contribute to the understanding of breastfeeding's impact on early language development using a large-scale dataset.

Main Methods:

  • Secondary analysis of the National Survey of Child Health (NSCH) 2022-2023 data.
  • Inclusion of 22,866 children meeting specific criteria.
  • Multinomial regression models comparing four breastfeeding categories (never, <6 months, 6 months not exclusive, exclusive) with 16 language variables.

Main Results:

  • Children in breastfeeding categories (6 months not exclusive, exclusive) showed a positive association with numerous language variables.
  • Significant associations were observed for language variables related to school readiness.
  • Adjusted odds ratios and significance levels were analyzed for individual language milestones.

Conclusions:

  • Study findings support a positive association between breastfeeding and language development.
  • This research provides comprehensive analysis of multiple individual language variables in a nationally representative sample.
  • Results highlight the importance of breastfeeding for early language acquisition and school readiness.

Keywords:
breastfeedingexclusive breastfeedinglanguage milestonespreschool age groupschool readiness

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