Breastfeeding lowers anxiety, says study

Sarah Hall, health correspondentThursday August 3, 2006The Guardian
Babies who are breastfed cope significantly better with stress in later life than those fed formula from a bottle, according to research published today. Scientists studied a group of 9,000 children to determine if those who were breastfed were more emotionally resilient if their parents divorced or separated.
They found children who had undergone this trauma experienced greater levels of anxiety than those whose parents stayed together. But children who were breastfed were better equipped to deal with the problem than those who were fed by bottle and were "significantly less anxious". Breastfed children were almost twice as likely to be highly anxious if their parents had divorced or separated compared to those who stayed together. But children who had been bottlefed were more than nine times as likely to be highly anxious as those whose parents had stayed married. At a conservative estimate, breastfed children were 10% less stressed if their parents divorced than those who were not breastfed.
source;www.guardian.co.uk