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Breastfeeding and child development
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We show that children who are born at or just before the weekend are less likely to be breastfed, owing to poorer breastfeeding support services in hospitals at weekends. We use this variation to estimate the effect of breastfeeding on children’s development in the first five years of life, for a sample of births of low educated mothers. We find large effects of breastfeeding on children’s cognitive development but no effects on health or non-cognitive development during the period of childhood we consider. Regarding mechanisms, we study how breastfeeding affects parental investments and the quality of the mother-child relationship.
Authors

Research Fellow University College London
Emla Fitzsimons is a Professor of Economics at the University College London Institute of Education and a Research Fellow at the IFS.

Research Fellow University College London
Marcos is a Research Fellow at IFS, an Affiliate at the Rural Education Action Program and a Professor of Economics at the University College London.
Working Paper details
- DOI
- 10.1920/wp.ifs.2021.3821
- Publisher
- Institute for Fiscal Studies
Suggested citation
Fitzsimons, E and Vera-Hernandez, M. (2021). Breastfeeding and child development. London: Institute for Fiscal Studies. Available at: https://ifs.org.uk/publications/breastfeeding-and-child-development (accessed: 10 February 2025).
Grant
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