MSNBC - Breastfeeding linked to fewer seizures in kids

Babies that are breastfed may have fewer seizures after they're a year old, according to a recent study in Denmark. And the longer babies are breastfed, the better, the researchers found. Babies who had mom's milk for more than 9 months had fewer seizures than babies who had breast milk for a shorter time, report the authors in the Journal of Pediatrics…

Past studies have shown a link between breastfeeding and risk for mental disorders later in life, such as attention deficient disorder or schizophrenia, said Dr. Michael Kramer, professor of pediatrics at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, who was not involved in the study.

But this is the first time anyone's looked at a possible link between the seizure disorder epilepsy and breastfeeding. Breastfeeding does a lot of good things, but this apparent protection against epilepsy "needs to be taken with a grain of salt, because it just hasn't been studied very much," Kramer told Reuters Health.