Food for Thought? Breastfeeding and Child Development

Emla Fitzsimons () and Marcos Vera-Hernández ()
Additional contact information
Emla Fitzsimons: Department of Quantitative Social Science, Institute of Education, University of London
Marcos Vera-Hernández: University College London
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Marcos Vera-Hernandez

No 14-04, DoQSS Working Papers from Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London

Abstract: We show that children who are born at the weekend or just before are less likely to be breastfed, owing to poorer breastfeeding support services at weekends. We use this variation to estimate the effect of breastfeeding on children’s development for a sample of uncomplicated births from low educated mothers. We find that breastfeeding has large effects on children’s cognitive development, but not on non-cognitive development or health. Regarding mechanisms, we estimate how breastfeeding affects parental investments in the child and the quality of the mother-child relationship.

Keywords: Breastfeeding; timing of birth; hospital support; instrumental variables; optimal instruments; cognitive and non-cognitive development; health. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I14 I18 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-02-17
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-dem and nep-neu
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Working Paper: Food for Thought? Breastfeeding and Child Development (2013)
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