The impact of breastfeeding on facial appearance in adolescent children.

ABSTRACT: Evidence that breastfeeding impacts the facial features of children is conflicting. Most studies to date have focused on dental and skeletal malocclusion. It currently remains unclear whether such effects are of sufficient magnitude to be detectable on outward facial appearance. Here, we evaluate the extent to which maternally reported breastfeeding is associated with 3D facial shape in a large adolescent cohort. After extracting 3D facial surfaces from MR scans in 2275 9- and 10-year-old children and aligning the surfaces in dense correspondence, we analyzed the effect of breastfeeding on shape as a dichotomous (no/yes) and semi-quantitative (to assess duration in months) variable using partial least squares regression. Our results showed no effect (p = 0.532) when breastfeeding was dicho

SUBMITTER: Goovaerts S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11407646 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature