Benefits of breast feeding by mother

Breast feeding is considered the best nutrition for the babies. There are lot of benefits of breast feeding and research is on to find more reasons to encourage mothers to breast feed their babies. Following are some features of mother milk.

Nutrition - Human survival depends more on brain power than on strong muscles, rapid growth (rapid maturity), or body size, so your milk is rich in the nutrients that best promote brain growth and nervous system development. Research has found that breastfed babies perform better on different kinds of intelligence tests as they grow older. They also develop better eye function. This is due mostly to certain types of fat (fatty acid chains) in human milk.The sugar (carbohydrate) and protein in breast milk are also designed to be used easily and more completely by the human baby.

Antibodies - Only human milk is alive with many different kinds of disease-fighting factors that help prevent mild to severe infections. Babies who are fully or almost-fully breastfed, or breast milk-fed babies, have significantly fewer gastrointestinal, respiratory, ear, and urinary infections. Antibodies in human milk directly protect against infection. Other anti-infective factors create an environment that is friendly to good bacteria, referred to as normal flora and unfriendly to bad bacteria, viruses, or parasites. Human milk also appears to have properties that help a baby’s own immune system work best. If your baby does become ill when breastfeeding and receiving your milk, the infection is likely to be less severe.

Digestion - Since nature designed human milk for human babies, your milk is the most easily digested food your baby can receive. A nutritious, yet easily digested first food is important for a baby’s immature digestive tract. Your baby uses less energy, yet breaks your milk down more completely into its basic ingredients, so the nutrients, anti-infective factors, and all the other ingredients in your milk are more available to fuel your baby’s body functions and to promote your baby’s growth and development.

Bio-availability - Bio-availability is a fancy way of referring to how well the body can use the nutrients in a food. The high bio-availability of nutrients in human milk means your baby gets more benefits from the nutrients it contains even for nutrients that appear in lower levels in breast milk when compared to infant formulas (because your baby’s body can absorb and use them most effectively). It also means your baby saves the energy that would be needed to eliminate any nutrients he/she had difficulty digesting or using. However, because Vitamin D deficiency (Rickets) has been discovered in some infants, the American Academy of Pediatrics currently recommends Vitamin D supplementation for all breastfed infants. Please consult your pediatrician on this matter.

Suitability - Your milk is best suited to, and so it is more gentle on, your baby’s body systems. The suitability of your milk plays a role in your milk’s digestibility, and it allows your baby’s body to function most efficiently while spending a lot less energy on body functions. Suitability is also thought to be one reason that breastfed babies are less likely to develop allergic-related skin conditions and asthma.

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