Infant Weight Gain During First Month and Head Circumference Linked to IQ Levels

Increase in weight and a larger head during the first month since birth is an indicator of high IQ among children, says a new study.

Babies usually gain three times their birth weight by the time they are a year old. Researchers in the current study found that there is a co-relation between weight-gain during the infant's first month with intelligence later in life.

The study was conducted by a study team led by researchers at University of Adelaide Public Health. For the study, researchers looked at health records of 13,800 children who were born after a full-term.

The study found that children who added about 40 percent of their initial weight in the first four weeks since birth had a higher IQ score of 1.5 points when compared with children who just gained 15 percent weight during their first year. Also, babies with a larger hear circumference had higher IQ when compared to their peers.

"Head circumference is an indicator of brain volume, so a greater increase in head circumference in a newborn baby suggests more rapid brain growth," said Dr Lisa Smithers from the University of Adelaide's School of Population Health, lead author of the study.

"Those children who gained the most weight scored especially high on verbal IQ at age 6. This may be because the neural structures for verbal IQ develop earlier in life, which means the rapid weight gain during that neonatal period could be having a direct cognitive benefit for the child," Smithers added, according to a news release.

The study shows that babies must be properly fed in the first few weeks of their life and that any problems faced by mothers during breastfeeding must be addressed as quickly as possible.

The study is published in the journal Pediatrics.