Breast milk boosts baby's brain development

Scientists have identified a sugar in breast milk that helps boost the nerve connections within the brain. — AFP

Nature and nurture – and science – have long shown that infants benefit from being breastfed.

But in what could turn out to be important finetuning of how and why this is, Yale University scientists and neurologists in the United States have fingered the sugar myo-inositol, contained in human milk, as “a bioactive dietary compound that promotes neuronal connectivity across species”.