Breastfeeding and Child Disability: A Comparison of Siblings from the United States / George Wehby.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wehby, George.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w19940.

NBER working paper series no. w19940

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Breastfeeding and Child Disability

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2014.

Summary:

Little is known about whether breastfeeding may prevent disabilities throughout childhood. We evaluate the effects of breastfeeding on child disability using data from the National Survey of Family Growth merged to the National Health Interview Survey for a large nationally representative sample of children aged 1 to 18 years from the U.S. including over 3,000 siblings who are discordant on breastfeeding status/duration. We focus on a mother fixed effect model that compares siblings in order to account for family-level unobservable confounders and employ multiple specifications including a dynamic model that accounts for disability status of the prior child. Breastfeeding the child for a longer duration is associated with a lower risk of child disability, by about 0.2 percentage-points per month of breastfeeding. This effect is only observed on the intensive margin among breastfed children, as any breastfeeding has no effect on the extensive margin. We conclude that very short breastfeeding durations are unlikely to have an effect on reducing disability risk.

Notes:

Print version record

February 2014.