Good Baby TipsTips for keeping your baby happy and healthy

The most important factor that influences a mother’s decision to breast feed her baby, as discussed in the previous article, is perhaps the nutritional benefits of breast milk. However, there are a number of other advantages of breast feeding that should be taken into consideration.

Immunological Benefits

Every time the human body is attacked by a disease, it develops immunity against it i.e. some special cells become sensitized to a particular type of virus or bacterium. The next time that disease attacks, there are cells that can fight it off. If the immunity is strong enough, the body may not catch that disease again.

When a mother breast feeds, much of the immunity she has developed herself is passed on to the baby through the antibodies present in her milk. For many years, doctors thought that breast-fed babies contracted fewer infections, compared to bottle-fed ones, because breast milk, coming directly from the mother, was free of any bacteria whereas bottle milk had higher chances of contamination. However, it was observed that even when infants were given formula milk in sterilized bottles they contracted more gut, ear, respiratory or urinary infections.

According to Jack Newman, a mother’s milk is not only safer for a child; it also contains Antibodies (immunoglobulins) that help to develop a child’s immune system. An infant is not born completely helpless against foreign diseases; during pregnancy the mother passes her antibodies to the child through the placenta, however, after birth, breast milk helps strengthen the immune system by delivering antibodies and a battery of other infection-fighting agents. (Click for source) Specific components of breast milk kill harmful bacteria and virus cells, while promoting the growth of helpful ones. A mother’s milk also delivers hormones for speedy maturation of the child’s digestive track.

As recorded in Consumer Reports, breast-fed babies are reported to develop fewer lifelong allergies that are mostly caused by dairy products. They are also at a lower risk of suffering from allergic skin conditions such as eczema. Babies receiving breast milk have fewer colds and stomach upsets (saving them from life-threatening forms of diarrhea.) The antibodies in the milk help the body to fight against mumps, measles, chicken pox, tetanus, pneumonia, meningitis etc. Breast-fed babies also have a lesser chance of becoming overweight adults. They run a lower risk of developing diabetes, appendicitis, arthritis or multiple sclerosis later in life.

Breast feeding a baby does not guarantee that your child will never get sick, but it does lower the chances by equipping the baby’s immune system to fight with the disease.

Benefits to the Mother

Breast feeding helps a mother to lose the extra high-energy fat that she has gained during pregnancy. According to Dr. Spock, it also helps the mother’s uterus to return back to its normal size. When the baby nurses, the muscle wall of the uterus contracts vigorously to hasten its return to its normal position and size.

Research has also shown that breast feeding can reduce the chances of breast, uterine and ovarian cancer, or osteoporosis after menopause for the mother. The younger you are when you breast feed and the longer you do it, the lower the chances become. Women who breast feed their child often do not menstruate during those months, which acts as an aid to birth control. (Click for source)

Practical Benefits

Breast feeding is also practically convenient. It saves a lot of time because there are no bottles to wash and sterilize, no measuring of formula and water to prepare the milk and no worries of refrigeration and proper storage. Breast milk is not only safer because it does not require protection from bacteria, measuring, mixing and storing, it is also more convenient as it is available anywhere the mother is.

There are also economic advantages to be considered. As breast feeding does not require any bottles and formula, an infant’s parents save money. Also, as discussed before, it reduces the chances of the child contracting diseases; it also saves the parents’ money on hospital bills and medical treatments.

Closeness between Mother and Child

Breast feeding an infant is the best way to develop closeness between a mother and a child. For a mother this bond stems from the knowledge that she is truly the source of nourishment for her growing infant. This feeling is concretized when she sees her baby’s response, his fondness for feeding and his satisfaction expressed by smiling, giggling or general having a content demeanor.

Dr. Spock, in Baby and Child Care, evidences mothers who have breast-fed and express their views about the satisfaction that comes with breast feeding and knowing that they can provide their baby with something no one else can. It is a misconception that a mother feels close to the baby because he was born to her. The development of this closeness, the time when she really feels joyous for being a mother, is when she is feeding her baby. She becomes a real mother when she’s taking care of her child. It is for this reason that breast feeding, after the first few weeks of nursing, becomes pleasurable for the mother; a time for relaxation and bonding between her and her baby.

Dr. Sheldon H. Cherry, a well-known obstetrician and gynecologist in New York’s Mount Sinal Hospital, in his book Understanding Pregnancy and Childbirth, asserts that the decision to breast-feed or bottle-feed a baby should be completely left to the mother’s personal preferences. As she is the one taking care of the baby, it is important for her to feel comfortable with the decision. Being pressured into either method of feeding will only lead to discontentment.

Dr. Benjamin Spock in Baby and Child Care is of the opinion that as a general principle it is always safer to adopt natural ways with your baby unless there is an exception and the mother is absolutely sure that there is another, better way. In recent years, the number of breast feeding mothers is growing, as there are definite advantages known of breast feeding and perhaps others that have not yet been discovered. There are many factors that contribute to a mother’s decision to breast feed her baby. The most important one, perhaps, is the nutritional benefits of breast milk for the infant. The more research is conducted upon breast milk and its contents, the more doctors are convinced that it is the perfect food for babies.

The Nutritional Benefits:

“There are 4,000 species of mammals and they all make different milk. Human milk is made for human infants and it meets all their specific nutrient needs,” says Ruth Lawrence, M.D., professor of pediatrics and obstetrics at the University Of Rochester School Of Medicine, and spokeswoman for the American Academy of Pediatrics. (Click for source) Each species’ milk has specific qualities that ensure the survival of its offspring in a particular environment. This principle is known as the biological specificity of milk. For instance, mother seals produce high-fat milk because baby seals need a lot of body fat to survive in cold water. Similarly, since brain development is crucial to the survival of humans, human milk provides nutrients for rapid brain growth. Not only does breast milk provide the best nutrition for an infant, it is specifically tailored to meet the needs as the baby grows. The milk changes its composition to meet the child’s changing needs. (Click for source)

Does breast milk contain everything a child needs? Does he require any supplements?

Vicki Lansky in the Complete Pregnancy and Baby Book expresses the opinion that as more is learnt about breast milk and its contents it becomes more obvious that breast milk contains a perfectly balanced amount of nutrients for optimal absorption in a baby’s body.

Early researches suggested that breast milk was nutritionally inadequate for infants, for instance, it did not contain a sufficient amount of iron for growing infants, which made doctors concerned about babies becoming anemic. However, it has been proven that these researches were based on inadequate studies and techniques and the small amount of iron present in the mother’s milk is optimal for absorption and enough to keep the baby from becoming anemic.

Some doctors are still concerned about the amount of fluoride present in breast milk and may suggest supplementing the baby with fluoride drops. However, babies have thrived even before the invention of fluoride drops and iron supplements, because breast milk is optimal itself. The doctors’ recommendation of these supplementary nutrients is often attributed to the fact that benefits of breast-feeding are not studied in depth and are overlooked in American Medical schools by summarizing them in one sentence “Breast feeding is best.” (Click for source)

Does formula milk contain all the same nutrients as breast milk?

For some mothers, due to various reasons, breast feeding is not an option and infant formulas have to be used. According to Dr. W. Steven Pray, Ph.D. Professor, School of Pharmacy, Southwestern Oklahoma State University, “Infant formulas have a difficult gap to fill. They must mimic breast milk as closely as possible. Yet it is difficult to produce a formula equal in all respects to breast milk, because its exact chemical composition is not yet known.” As every baby has unique nutritional requirements, according to his age, birth weight and growth rate, breast milk changes to suit these requirements whereas formula milk is a compromise between ideal infant nutrition and starvation. (Click for source)

Infant formula contains synthetic replicas of the nutrients found in breast milk. However, breast milk is so complex that it is estimated that there are still hundreds of ingredients in it that haven’t been discovered yet. Many of those that have been discovered cannot be replicated in a lab. Thus, formula milk is an imitation of breast milk but not a duplication. In addition, many ingredients in formula are as such that they cannot be readily absorbed and utilized by the baby’s body. For example, the iron found in infant formula is not easily absorbed. This can cause problems such as the baby becoming anemic from lack of iron absorption into the bloodstream or constipation due to the extra unabsorbed iron lying in the intestines.(Click for source)