Breast-feeding linked to less bed-wetting

A U.S. study concludes children who are breast-fed as infants have a lower rate of bed-wetting after the age of 5.

The study of 55 bed-wetters between the ages of 5 and 13, published this month in Pediatrics, found that only 45.5 percent were breast-fed, compared with a breast-feeding rate of 81.2 percent among children who didn't wet their beds, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Earlier studies concluded breast-fed babies' develop better vision and score higher on IQ tests, the newspaper said.

Study author Joseph G. Barone, a pediatrics expert at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, N.J., said that in some healthy children nighttime wetting is a form of delayed neurological development.

Barone is seeking funding from the National Institutes of Health to study whether breast-fed children achieve daytime dryness sooner than formula-fed peers, the newspaper said.

Copyright 2006 by United Press International