We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2023
This chapter concerns neuro-cognitive development, from conception through to childhood. Breastfeeding has been studied extensively using cross-sectional methods, finding cognitive benefits. However, after controlling for confounding variables and with better designs, beneficial effects are at best small. Maternal undernutrition can result in adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes (e.g., enhanced risk of schizophrenia). Undernutrition during infancy and early childhood causes stunting – inadequate growth for age. Stunting is common (around 500 million children worldwide) and is linked to multiple cognitive impairments, imposing lifelong costs on the individual. As stunting involves a complex interaction between nutrition, brain and environment, dietary remediation alone may not be that effective. Maternal overnutrition is also associated with adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes, but here it is unclear if this relates to poor diet quality, maternal body fat or socio-economic factors. Finally, there are a wide range of specific nutritional deficiencies that affect neurocognitive development, many having lifelong impacts (e.g., thiamine, folate iron, iodine).
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
