org355: Is breastfeeding the key to exam success?

A bit too late for those of you taking Paper 2 is this episode of BBC 4's More or Less.

Since this podcast is for a general audience, they can't use any of our lingo. But you should recognise how they are delving into important epidemiologic concepts.

What do you make of the observational study design involving siblings?

Also worth a listen is the previous episode, about counting hunger in India.

Re: Is breastfeeding the key to exam success?

by | JUDITH MARGARET BURCHARDT - Wednesday, 21 June 2023, 10:38 AM

Hi Sujit,

Thank you for suggesting, 'More or Less'. I hadn't listened to it before and find that I can most easily access it on the BBC sounds app.

The observational study design using siblings seemed a good way to try to restrict to reduce confounding, although I still wondered why it was that some babies in a family had been breastfed and others not. As they found no difference in IQ I believed the finding, but if there had been a difference I would have wondered if the reason for the difference in breastfeeding might be relevant to the difference in IQ (eg had the baby spent a long time on neonatal ICU)?

Thank you also for arranging for the advanced statistics material to be made available to us. That's a help.

Best wishes

Judith