Benefits of Breastfeading

Your breast milk is the best and most complete food that your baby can receive. Your milk has all nutrients required for your baby’s healthy and immediate development and favors the baby’s good health during his or her whole life.

Due to greater skin-to-skin contact, your baby’s psychical and physical evolution will be very valuable, because the context of a prolonged emotional closeness to your body is indispensable for protecting your baby in the short-, medium- and long-term development, thus creating a very strong loving bond and intensifying the relationship between you and your baby.

Long-term breastfeeding with greater physical contact will result in lesser risks of diseases and, when getting ill, the disease will be less serious. Therefore, your work absence will be reduced, since you don’t have to stay home taking care of your child.

As a “breastfeeding mom” you have a leading role in this mom–child bond. Finding emotional balance and a good environment, both with the family and at work, will give you the calmness and appropriate atmosphere for building a healthy loving bond, which will be positive and valuable in the emotional development and strength of your child’s personality.

Good primary bonds with you leave a mark for the development of a future healthy adult for society.

Breastfeeding Benefits

Breast milk is the best and most complete food for a child under six months old. It can be more easily digested than any other milk not from our species, and it also contains all nutrients necessary for the child’s healthy development.

Breastfeeding advantages for the baby

*Breast milk is harmless and contains antibodies helping to protect breastfed children from usual infancy conditions, such as diarrhea and pneumonia; it has everything the baby needs: an accurate amount of vitamins, fat and proteins. Breast milk is rich in iron, which can be better absorbed than iron in artificial milk, and it contains a more appropriate calcium/phosphorous ratio.
*It is a vaccine fighting all infectious and contagious diseases. It protects the child against infections (bronchitis, gastroenteritis, otitis, meningitis) because breast milk has plenty of immunoglobulin (defenses passed by the mother to the baby). Therefore, the baby is healthier and has more defenses (fewer and less serious health conditions).
*It is well digested and the baby is not constipated.
*It has the ideal composition for the baby and the nutrients proportion varies as the child grows up; it also changes the proportion of nutrients throughout the day and it is different when the baby starts and ends drinking it.
*It is quickly available for the baby and at the right temperature. It gets directly to the child’s mouth, so there is no prior contamination or manipulation.
*It builds a very strong loving bond which protects the baby both physically and psychically. In addition to immediate benefits for children, it favors good health during their whole life. Adolescents and adults who had been breastfed are less prone to overweight or obesity, and get better scores in IQ tests.

Breastfeeding advantages for the mum

*The mom-child emotional bond is intensified.
*At night, it is possible to breastfeed with no need of getting up, so the mom can go on resting.
*It helps the uterus, which grew so much during pregnancy, to recover its regular size.
*It delays ovulation.
*It favors a lower incidence of breast and ovarian cancer.
*It prevents, to a greater extent, the mom from suffering anemia.

Breastfeeding advantages for society

*Expense in public and private health is reduced, since one of the remarkable advantages of breastfeeding is fewer ill children.
*Work absenteeism goes down, since parents do not need to stay home taking care of children.
*It has a very positive impact on family economy, since expenses in food and other supplements go down remarkably.
*It is ecofriendly: it requires no manufacture, packing and transportation.

Bibliography: Breastfeeding Benefits: World Health Organization

BELKIS B. PONGETTI
CHILD CARE AND UPBRINGING UNIVERSITY DEGREE (TÉCNICA UNIVERSITARIA EN PUERICULTURA Y CRIANZA)
BREASTFEEDING AND MOTHER-BABY BONDING EXPERT
DOULA
www.puericultora.com.ar
www.puericultoras.com.ar
belkispongetti@hotmail.com