Breastfeeding

Benefits to

the child

Provides Perfect Nutrition

Breast milk is a perfect food that cannot be duplicated. Mother's milk is tailor-made for your baby. In fact, it actually matches 50% of your baby's genetic material.

Provides Perfect Nutrition

Breast milk provides all of the calories your baby needs in the first 6 months. It has the perfect combination of proteins, fats, carbohydrate, and fluids that new-born babies require.

Mother's milk contributes significantly to the growth and maturation of the baby's digestive system, which is not complete until around 6 months of age.

Provides Perfect Nutrition

The sugar (carbohydrate) and protein in breast milk are also designed to be used easily and more completely by the human baby.

Breast milk prevents a shortage of vitamin A between 12 and 36 months.

Breast milk composition is very stable, even when the mother has a poor diet or is ill.

Breast milk decreases the risk for vitamin E and Iron deficiency anemia.

Breast milk provides adequate water for hydration.

All types of immunoglobulins are found in breast milk. The highest concentration is found in colostrum, the pre-milk that is only available from the breast the first three to five days of the baby's life.

Provides Perfect Nutrition

Breast milk is a dynamic fluid that changes in composition throughout the day and throughout the course of lactation. It provides for the baby the specific nutrients that are needed at each age and in each situation. The varying composition of breast milk keeps pace with the infant's individual growth and changing nutritional needs.

•Provides Perfect Nutrition

• Secretory IGA, a type of immunoglobulin that protects the ears, nose, throat, and the GI tract, is found in high amounts in breast milk throughout the first year. Secretory IGA attaches to the lining of the nose, mouth, and throat and fights the attachment of specific infecting agents.

Provides Perfect Nutrition

Bonds mother and child

• Breastfeeding is a gentle way for newborns to transition to the world outside the womb.

• Breastfeeding provides physiological and psychological benefits for both mother and child. It creates emotional bonds, and has been known to reduce rates of infant abandonment.

Protects Against Infection

Only breast 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 babies have significantly fewer gastrointestinal, respiratory, ear, and urinary infections. They also have less digestive troubles, such as colic.

Protects Against Infection

On average, breastfed babies have fewer infections in their early life. In particular, they have less diarrhoea and vomiting, compared to babies who are not breast fed.

Always Available

• Breast milk is always available, never spoils and is totally free.

• Breast milk availability works on a supply and demand basis. Maintaining a good milk supply depends on the regular stimulation provided by baby or by pumping.

• No mistakes in mixing.

Easily Digested

• A nutritious, yet easily digested first food is important for a baby's immature digestive tract. Babies uses less energy, yet break breast milk down more completely into its basic ingredients, so the nutrients, anti-infective factors, and all the other ingredients in the milk are more available to fuel the baby's body functions and to promote the baby's growth and development.

• Mother's milk is easier to digest and almost completely assimilated by the baby. This is why breastfed babies feed more frequently than formula-fed babies. Breastfed babies also make liquid stools that contain almost no solid matter (and do not smell offensive).

Easily Digested

Enhances Development and Intelligence

• Research has found that breastfed babies perform better on different kinds of intelligence tests as they grow older.

• Children who had consumed mother's milk in early weeks of life had a significantly higher IQ at 7.5 to 8 yr. than those who received no maternal milk, even after adjustment for differences between groups and mothers' educational and social class.

Enhances Development and Intelligence

• Mother's milk contains the fatty acids essential to the development of the baby's nervous system and vision. This may be one of the reasons why breastfed babies' IQ are 8 to 10 points higher than that of formula-fed babies.

Promotes the Recovery of the Sick Child

• Breastfeeding provides a nutritious, easily digestible food when a sick child loses appetite for other foods. When a child is ill or has diarrhea, breastfeeding helps prevent dehydration. Frequent breastfeeding also diminishes the risk of malnutrition and fosters catch-up growth following illness.

Enhances Vaccine Response

• Breastfeeding promotes earlier development of the infant immune system and increases the effectiveness of immunizations, increasing the protection against polio, tetanus, and diptheria vaccines.

Enhances Vaccine Response

• Many studies show that breastfeeding strengthens the immune system. During nursing, the mother passes antibodies to the child, which help the child resist diseases and help improve the normal immune response to certain vaccines.

Summary of BenefitsBREASTFEEDING

• Best for babyReduces incidence of allergiesEconomical - no wasteAntibodies - greater immunity to infectionsStool inoffensive - never constipatedTemperature always correct and constantFresh milk - never goes sour in the breastEmotionally bondingEasy once establishedDigested easily within two to three hoursImmediately availableNutritionally balancedGastroenteritis greatly reduced