Having been breastfed not only helps people up the social ladder, it also stops them slipping down, a report suggests.
The report, based on two studies that followed thousands of British babies into adulthood, found that those who were breastfed were 1.25 times more likely to move up socially and less likely to move down.
The studies followed children born in 1958 and 1970, establishing whether they had been breastfed and basing their social class on their fathers’ occupations. They recorded the social class of the subjects again when they had reached the ages of 33 and 34, categorising them in four classes from unskilled/semi-skilled manual up to professional/managerial.
The studies adjusted for other factors that might affect social mobility, such as childhood intelligence and