IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0310538.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The impact of breastfeeding on facial appearance in adolescent children

Author

Listed:
  • Seppe Goovaerts
  • Ahmed M El Sergani
  • Myoung Keun Lee
  • John R Shaffer
  • Peter Claes
  • Seth M Weinberg

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 dichotomized. However, when treated as a semi-quantitative variable, breastfeeding duration was associated with statistically significant changes in shape (p = 3.61x 10−4). The most prominent facial changes included relative retrusion of the central midface, zygomatic arches, and orbital regions along with relative protrusion of forehead, cheek, and mandible. The net effect was that as breastfeeding duration increased, the facial profile in children became flatter (less convex). The observed effects on the face, however, were subtle and likely not conspicuous enough to be noticed by most observers. This was true even when comparing the faces of children breastfed for 19–24 months to children with no reported breastfeeding. Thus, breastfeeding does appear to have detectable effect on outward facial appearance in adolescent children, but its practical impact appears to be minimal.

Suggested Citation

  • Seppe Goovaerts & Ahmed M El Sergani & Myoung Keun Lee & John R Shaffer & Peter Claes & Seth M Weinberg, 2024. "The impact of breastfeeding on facial appearance in adolescent children," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 19(9), pages 1-11, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0310538
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0310538
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0310538
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0310538&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0310538?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Seppe Goovaerts & Hanne Hoskens & Ryan J. Eller & Noah Herrick & Anthony M. Musolf & Cristina M. Justice & Meng Yuan & Sahin Naqvi & Myoung Keun Lee & Dirk Vandermeulen & Heather L. Szabo-Rogers & Pau, 2023. "Joint multi-ancestry and admixed GWAS reveals the complex genetics behind human cranial vault shape," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-21, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michiel Vanneste & Hanne Hoskens & Seppe Goovaerts & Harold Matthews & Jay Devine & Jose D. Aponte & Joanne Cole & Mark Shriver & Mary L. Marazita & Seth M. Weinberg & Susan Walsh & Stephen Richmond &, 2024. "Syndrome-informed phenotyping identifies a polygenic background for achondroplasia-like facial variation in the general population," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-13, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0310538. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.