50 good reasons to breastfeed
- Individuals who have been breastfed maintain a lifetime advantage over those who have not.
- Just one month of breastfeeding confers higher calcium retention in children's bones, which are then less likely to be subject to osteoporosis in later life.
- Women who breastfeed are themselves less likely to develop osteoporosis in later life.
- Just one month of breastfeeding has been shown to greatly improve the baby's immune responses to vaccination.
- Individuals who have been breastfed are less prone to allergic illnesses.
- Children who were breastfed have a lower incidence of cancer, especially lymphoma.
- Postmortem studies done on children who died accidental deaths showed that the longer they had been breastfed the healthier were their major blood vessels.
- Premature babies who were given tube-fed human milk for just the first month after birth have continued to maintain about 8 IQ points advantage over other premature babies who were not fed any human milk. These children are now over 7 years of age and are still being followed up by the researchers.
- Premature babies who are fed human milk are far less subject to one of the major complications of prematurity – necrotising enterocolitis (death of a section of the bowel).
- Artificial baby milks (formulae) are made from cow milk unless the label says otherwise.
- It is impossible to make up an artificial milk (formula) feed without contaminating it with various microorganisms. Hence the need for great care with hygiene and storage of these feeds because they contain no antimicrobial agents to kill these potentially harmful microbes.
- Formula is a perfect medium for bacteria to grow in, especially when warmed to feed a baby. Ideally formula feeds should be warmed for the baby just before he is fed, and consumed within 30 minutes to reduce the risk of gastrointestinal infections.
- It is impossible to express breast milk without contaminating it with various micro-organisms. However, these will be kept within safe limits by the active antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal and antiparasitic properties of this milk.
- Fresh human milk is actually cleaner of microbes several hours after being expressed than it was initially, because of the activity of white blood cells in the milk.
- Fresh human milk can be stored in a clean covered container at room temperature for 8 hours before its microbial contamination levels make it unsafe to feed to the baby.
- Ferret milk is actually much closer in composition to human milk than cow or goat milk.
- The fear of AIDS has closed most of the world's human milk banks (previously used to feed very sick babies) but not our human sperm banks, even though pasteurisation kills viruses such as HIV. Sperm cannot be pasteurised and keep their function, whereas pasteurised human milk retains most of its value as the optimal feed for sick babies.
- Breastfeeding prevents far more pregnancies worldwide (even in industrialised countries such as Australia) than all other forms of contraception added together.
- On average, most women who breastfeed their babies fully during the first six months (that is, without using dummies or giving any other food or drinks) will not menstruate until 6-7 months after the birth.
- However, the normal range for return of menstruation in breastfeeding women is any time from about 4 weeks after the birth till about 3 months after weaning.
- Breastfeeding can be continued during pregnancy. If breastfeeding is proposed to be a miscarriage risk due to the release of the contractive hormone, oxytocin, then sexual activity would equally need to be banned for 9 months, since orgasm releases far greater concentrations of oxytocin than does breastfeeding.
- Telecom (before it became Telstra) and the Australian Taxation Office have both made provision for women employees who wish to express and store their milk at work to do so.
- Newborn infant reflexes, still present many weeks after the birth, enable babies who are placed in direct skin-to-skin contact with their mothers' bodies (tummy down on the mother's stomach) to crawl to the breast, attach themselves and feed.
- Breastfed babies have far lower rates of infections than artificially fed babies.
- Breastfeeding reduces the risk of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome).
- Women who breastfeed their babies have a lower incidence of breast cancer before the menopause than those who do not. The more accumulated time spent breastfeeding, the greater is the protection. (After the menopause the relative risk becomes the same for both groups of women.)
- Individuals who were breastfed have a lower incidence of inflammatory bowel conditions such as Crohn's disease and coeliac disease.
- Insulin-dependent diabetes is less likely to develop in people who were breastfed babies.
- The success rates of kidney transplants is greatly improved for patients who were breastfed babies, and improved further if the donor kidneys came from siblings who were also breastfed.
- Orthodontic development is enhanced by breastfeeding.
- Babies enjoy the taste of garlic (from their mothers' diet) in breast milk - and drink more of it. On the other hand, they drink less breast milk if it contains alcohol.
- No baby milks should ever be heated in microwave ovens. The major risk to babies is third degree burns to the mouth, needing 3 months to heal. Microwaves also destroy nutrients and create abnormal proteins in all types of milk.
- If all the babies in Logan City (Brisbane) were bottle-fed, it has been estimated that the cost of electricity alone (to boil the water for sterilising equipment and making up feeds) would be over $1,000,000 per year.
- Breastfed babies are less subject to gastrointestinal infections, especially moderate to severe gastrointestinal infections. This is significant because even in Western societies, gastroenteritis ranks among the ten leading causes of death in young children. 10 - 40% of Australian babies develop gastrointestinal illness in their first year of life.
- The minimum UK cost of gastroenteritis able to be prevented by breastfeeding alone has been estimated at ₤12,000,000. No comparable costing has been done for Australia.
- Even in the wealthy USA, the cost of hospital treatment of artificially fed babies is 15 times higher than for breastfed babies.
- If every mother in the UK breastfed, 3,000 tonnes of paper would be saved each year on sanitary protection products. (As well as saving this amount of waste to dispose of.)
- For every 3 million bottle-fed babies, 450 million tins of artificial milk are used. This amounts to 70,000 tons of metal, needing huge energy expenditure to produce - and which is not subsequently recycled.
- It would take 135 million lactating cows to replace the milk produced by the mothers of India. Cows need pasture - this many cows would need to occupy 43% of the surface area of India (about 6 times the area of the UK).
- Cow pasture must be cleared of trees - leading to deforestation, soil depletion, soil erosion, loss of habitat and species, methane gas production and water pollution.
- Breast milk is a complete food for at least the first six months of a baby's life.
- Breastfed babies don't need to drink water – artificially fed babies do, to help their kidneys dispose of unusable nutrients in artificial baby milks.
- Dummies, teats and nipple shields are best not used with breastfed babies in the first few weeks as the baby becomes used to the different muscular actions needed to breastfeed successfully.
- Pain is not a normal part of breastfeeding and indicates that something needs to be corrected.
- Premature babies can be tube or cup fed before they can be breastfed, and can successfully breastfeed before they can successfully bottle-feed.
- Although one of the most common reasons given by mothers for early weaning from the breast is that they couldn't make enough milk, research has shown that many of these women are in fact oversupplied.
- Milk supply is determined by the volume of milk removed from the breast, therefore more feeds for an effective breastfed baby make more milk.
- Women have breastfed twins, triplets, quadruplets and quintuplets successfully.
- A third of all colic in breastfed babies disappears when cow milk products are removed from the mothers' diets.
- Breastfeeding is a non-polluting, energy efficient, renewable resource capable of saving billions more Australian dollars if it were more prevalent in our community.
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