Advantages of Breastfeeding: Too Many to Count

Medical advice says that there is no right or wrong choice in breastfeeding infants. Any decision that you, the parents take, should be based on your comfort level with the mode of feeding. But, the advantages of breastfeeding are several: it fights infections; it is nutritious and easy to digest; it is free; it familiarizes babies to different tastes; it is a convenient feed; it prevents obesity; it leads to smarter growth in babies; it helps in bonding; and it is beneficial to the mothers, too.

Those who are not comfortable with breastfeeding for some reason or the other, may opt for formula feeding to fulfil their baby's nutritional requirements. But if the baby were asked, he would probably opt to be breastfed.

Antibodies

First, breastmilk contains antibodies which when passed from the nursing mother to the breastfeeding infant, helps in fight infections like ear infections, diarrhea, respiratory infections and meningitis.

Immunity against Virus

Second, bottle fed babies are not protected against a number of immunological viruses in the way a breastfed baby is protected from infection by the barriers to infection being raised when the infant's immune system is fortified from the growth of organisms like bacteria and viruses. Formula-fed infants have more infections and more hospitalizations than do breastfed babies.

Nutrients

Third, breast milk is often called the "perfect food" for a human baby's digestive system, and its components - lactose, protein (whey and casein), and fat - are easily digested by a newborn's immature system.

Digestible

Fourth, formula-fed infants find it more difficult to digest their formula food than do breastfed infants. Breast milk tends to be more easily digested so that breastfed babies have fewer incidences of diarrhea or constipation. Breast milk is a natural source of all the vitamins and minerals that a newborn requires. Because some of breast milk's more complex substances are too difficult to manufacture and some have not yet been identified, while commercial formulas duplicate the ingredients in breast milk, breast milk's more complex substances are too difficult to manufacture and some have not yet been identified.

Free

Fifth, breast milk is free. It is also profitable to feed breastmilk to infants due to the immunities and antibodies passed onto them through their mothers' breast milk. Breastfed infants are sick less often than infants who receive formula and thus visits to the doctor are much less in frequency than if the infant were drinking formula feed. Moreover, women who breastfeed are less likely to have to take time off from work to care for their sick babies.

Flavors of Foods

Sixth, as a nursing mother, you will need 500 extra calories per day to produce breast milk, which means that you should eat a wide variety of well-balanced foods. The advantage is that your eating different foods introduces breastfed babies to different tastes through their mothers' breast milk. The milk acquires the flavor of what the mothers have eaten and passes onto the baby the taste for the food, so when the baby is of an age when he can take to other foods, he finds it easier to switch.

Available

Seventh, breastmilk has many advantages vis-à-vis formula foods. The supply of breastmilk is always fresh and available with no bottles to mix and sterilize and no last-minute runs to the store for more formula. Also breast milk is always at the right temperature, you do not have to warm up bottles in the middle of the night. Breastfed mothers are also more active - they can go about their jobs with their babies, knowing they can feed their babies whenever they want.

Fights Obesity

Eighth, according to recent studies, breastfeeding might help prevent childhood and adult obesity. According to the National Women's Health Information Center (part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services)'s research, babies who are breastfed tend to gain less unnecessary weight, which may help them stay away from being overweight.

Smart Food

Ninth, babies exclusively breastfed for 6 months also grow up into children who have IQs 5 to 10 points higher than children who were formula fed.

Bonding Element

Tenth, as a nursing mother, you can really enjoy the experience of bonding so closely with your baby, with the skin-to-skin contact able to enhance the emotional connection between mother and baby.

Mothers Gain

Finally, advantages to the nursing mothers who feed their babies breastmilk are several. It helps a new mother feel confident in her ability to care for her baby, helps her burn calories, helps shrink the uterus, so nursing moms may be able to return to their pre-pregnancy shape and weight quicker. It also helps her lower the risk of premenopausal breast cancer and the risk of uterine and ovarian cancer.

While choosing whether or not to breastfeed your baby depends on the mother and her family. But the advantages of breast milk consumption for the baby, and breast milk production and feeding, for the mother, are too many to ignore.