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Most New Mothers Today Decide to Breastfeed
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Here are some of their reasons: Breastfeeding is much more fun, even though it may not seem so in the early days of learning how and solving problems. But your body is built to nurse - pure and simple - not to buy, store, fix, heat, and clean up after a manufactured product. Babies who are carried in arms or in a sling, next to their source of food and comfort, tend to fuss much less and enjoy themselves more, making them more fun for everyone. Breastfed babies are much more portable. A nursing mother never lacks for the right food at the right temperature in the right amount at the right time - anywhere. Without bottles and pacifiers, nursing babies are simpler to carry along. You seldom see a baby nursing in public? That's because it's easy to be discreet. Formulas are much more expensive. Formulas cost about $3 per day, plus extra time, extra doctor bills, and equipment. And formulas aren't fully covered by WIC. Formula-feeding doesn't smell good. Abnormal intestinal bacteria go along with formula feeding. The different bacteria, along with less effective digestion, mean smellier diapers. A baby's skin and breath even smell different with formula-feeding. Breastfed babies are healthier. Formula gives no protection against illness, so formula-fed babies are more prone to diarrhea, ear and respiratory infections, skin problems, and pneumonia. They have more constipation, anemia, and allergies, and are at greater risk for SIDS. Formula-fed babies tend to get sick more often and recover more slowly than normal. And sick babies are not much fun. | Formula affects longterm health, too. How a person was fed as a baby affects his or her risk of childhood diabetes, childhood cancer, ulcerative colitis, obesity, and perhaps heart disease. Without the longterm jaw action of nursing, there is more need for orthodontia and speech therapy. There is an IQ difference, too. Formulas are simply not complete foods. They lack hundreds of enzymes, hormones, anti-infectives, and living cells that are found in breastmilk. Nursing is a lifelong baby gift that only Mom can give. Bottle-feeding mothers have added health risks. Without her normal nursing hormones, a bottle-feeding mother's body recovers from birth more slowly, and her risk of certain breast and ovarian cancers rises. She also loses out on the soothing, patience-producing effects of nursing hormones at a time when life can be especially stressful. Breastfed babies have a normal start. Nursing for even a few days gives a baby the food, immunities, and snuggling for which he is designed. Even a mother who then decides not to continue has given her baby a solid, normal start in life. Breastfeeding. Why on earth not? |