American Research Journal of Gynaecology

Background: Breastfeeding is the normal way of providing young infants with the nutrients they need for healthy growth and development. The WHO recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life, after which infants should receive nutritionally adequate and safe complementary foods while breastfeeding continues up to two years of age or beyond. This research focuses on breastfeeding of children and its relationship to their motor and cognitive development.

Objective: To assess the development (motor and cognitive) in children aged 5 years who have been breastfed and who have been not.

Material and Methods

Study Design: Cross-sectional Study

Study Setting and duration: Duration of the study was 3 months.

Setting: Children visiting pediatric OPD of Capital Development Authority (CDA) Hospital, Islamabad, Pakistan.

Inclusion criteria: We will select children aged 5 years whose mothers have given consent for the data collection

Data Collection and analysis: Data Analysis will be done using SPSS version 17.Initial Analysis will include frequency distribution and calculation of descriptive statistics e.g. mean median mode and standard deviation

Results: In our study we included 250 subjects following our inclusion criteria. Of 250 subjects 152 were male 60.80% and 98 were female 39.20 % (Graph No. 1). Of these 250 children 83 (33.2%) were school going and 167 (66.8%) were not (Table No. 1). We developed a scale to evaluate the motor and cognitive development of these subjects and found out that10 (50 %) of the non-breastfed children fell in the Poor (score 1-4) category while only 1 (0.4 %) who was breastfed also fell in this category. Making a total of 11 (4.4 %) out of 250 subjects belonging to the Poor category. 7 (35 %) of the non-breastfed children and 23 (10 %) of the breastfed children belonged to the Average (score 4-8) group. Making a total of 30 (12 %) out of 250 subjects belonging to the Average group. 3 (15 %) of the non-breastfed subjects and 206 (89.6 %) of the breastfed subjects fell in the Good (score 8-12) category. Making a total of 209 subjects out of 250 in the Good category. (Table No. 9)

Conclusions: Breast feeding has a strong relationship with the motor and cognitive development of the children.