This might be the breast choice for your children. 

Babies who are breastfed for their first six weeks of life are less likely to have behavioral problems or special educational needs (SEN), according to a new study.

The study, published in the journal Plos Medicine, looked at the relationship between breastfeeding infants and special educational needs.

The World Health Organization recommends breastfeeding for six months, but the findings imply that even mixed feeding for less amount of time also could have benefits when it comes to SEN development.

“We know that many women struggle to exclusively breastfeed for the full six months recommended by the WHO; however, our study provides evidence that a shorter duration of non-exclusive breastfeeding could nonetheless be beneficial with regards to a child’s learning development,” Dr. Michael Fleming, who led the study, said in a statement.

Researchers from the University of Glasgow analyzed health and education data for 191,745 children born in Scotland from 2004 onwards with available data on breastfeeding and who attended a state school or SEN school between 2009 and 2013.

Study authors noted that children born in private hospitals, privately educated or home-schooled were not included, and factors such as social class and mother’s education were not included.

Out of the children in the study, for the first six to eight weeks of life, 66.2% were formula fed, 25.3% were breastfed and 8.5% were mix-fed.

About 12.1% of children had SEN.

The study found that both mixed feeding and exclusively breastfeeding were linked to a decrease in risk of developing SEN, at around 10% and 20% less likely than formula feeding, respectively.

On top of the decreased risk of SEN, those who were exclusively breastfed had a lower risk of communication problems, social-emotional-behavioral difficulties, sensory impairments, physical motor disabilities and physical health conditions.

The study suggests that breastfeeding exclusively in the first few weeks after childbirth could help reduce the risk of learning disabilities and difficulties that ultimately lead to SEN.

“The results of this study suggest that feeding method in infancy could be a modifiable risk factor for the causes of special educational need, which in turn has the potential to help reduce the burden for affected children, their families and wider society,” Fleming said.