Babies who are not breastfed have a 21% higher postneonatal mortality rate in the United States. The U.S. Department of Women's Health, the U.S. Surgeon General, the Center for Disease Control, the American Association of Pediatrics, and the World Health Organization all recommend that mothers exclusively breastfeed their children for the first six months.
"Breastfeeding is an unequalled way of providing ideal food for the healthy growth and development of infants; it is also an integral part of the reproductive process with important implications for the health of mothers. To achieve optimal growth, development and health, infants should be exclusively breastfed for the first six months of life. Thereafter, to meet their evolving nutritional requirements, infants should receive nutritionally adequate and safe complementary foods while breastfeeding continues for up to two years of age or beyond. Exclusive breastfeeding from birth is possible except for a few medical conditions, and unrestricted exclusive breastfeeding results in ample milk production."
--WHO Executive Board 109th Session provisional agenda item 3.8
The American Association of Pediatrics recommends that mothers continue to nurse their children for at least one year.
How Breastfeeding Benefits Babies
Antibodies found in breast milk help protect the baby from viruses. Babies who are insufficiently breastfed are more likely to contract infectious diseases. They also carry a higher risk for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and other serious health problems. It's also possible for babies' health to suffer due to contaminated baby bottles or nipples, but breastfeeding removes that threat.
Breast milk has just the right amount of various nutrients, causing the baby to grow properly without becoming overweight. Some studies suggest that breastfed babies are less likely to be overweight later in life.
Breastfeeding is especially important for babies who were born prematurely.
How Breastfeeding Benefits Mothers
Breastfeeding helps the mother's uterus go back to its original size quicker, thus lessening problems with bleeding after giving birth. It lowers the risk of breast cancer and ovarian cancer and can cause bone re-mineralization, which reduces chances of osteoporosis or other bone problems after menopause.
Breastfeeding consumes about 500 calories a day, helping you lose pregnancy weight.
Although you should still use birth control if you're concerned about getting pregnant again, breastfeeding helps delay the return of ovulation and menstruation. This helps conserve iron in the mother's body.
How Breastfeeding Benefits Families and Society
Because formula can cost hundreds of dollars a month, families save a lot of money if the babies are breastfed. Even the highest quality breast pumps, priced at around $250, are more economical.
Breastfeeding is convenient in many ways. It's already at the right temperature and is easily transported. You can give your baby the milk as soon as you realize he's hungry instead of spending time to mix and warm the formula, which will be especially beneficial when your baby wakes up hungry in the middle of the night. If you sleep with your baby, you will not have to get up in the middle of the night to feed him. Some mothers who do this report that they do not recall waking in the middle of the night at all.
Because breastfed babies get sick far less often, parents will not have to take off work or pay medical costs as frequently. Again, this saves the family money and time. Studies show that the annual health care costs in the United States could decrease by $3.6 billion if more babies were breastfed.
The environment would benefit from more families breastfeeding because there are less formula cans and bottles to throw away and less energy consumed by the production and transport of formula.
Should you Breastfeed?
Despite all the benefits of breastfeeding, there are a few situation in which a mother should not breastfeed her baby.
- HIV and HTLV-1 can spread from mother to child via breast milk, so infected mothers in developed countries such as the United States should not breastfeed.
- Mothers who have active untreated tuberculosis disease should not breastfeed.
- Mothers who are human T-cell lymphotropic virus type I–or II–positive should not breastfeed.
- Mothers should not breastfeed if there is radioactivity in the milk due to her receiving radioactive isotopes or having been exposed to radioactive materials.
- Mothers who are receiving antimetabolites or chemotherapeutic agents should not breastfeed.
- Mothers using illegal drugs should not breastfeed.
- Mothers who have herpes simplex lesions on a breast should not feed with that breast. (Infant may feed from other breast if clear of lesions.)
However, with most illnesses, such as a cold or flu, it is still perfectly safe to breastfeed. In fact, the mother will pass antibodies for those sicknesses to the baby via the milk and thus make the baby less likely to get sick than if it were not breastfed.
Although smoking is heavily discouraged, it is still better to breastfeed your baby even if you smoke, especially if you smoke no more than 20 cigarettes per day.
A very small amount of alcohol may be safe, but avoid feeding two hours after the drink.
Negative Emotions About Breastfeeding
As breasts have become a sex symbol, some mothers feel uncomfortable because breastfeeding seems gross or seems like too much of a sexual act to be performing with your baby. Here are some things to keep in mind.
- In a normal natural birth, the baby came out of your vagina.
- If you feed the baby formula, he's still drinking a fluid that came from someone's breasts. It's just that they were a farm animal's breasts instead of yours.
Nursing in Public
Throughout most of the United States, it is legal for a mother to nurse her baby anywhere the baby and mother are both allowed to be, and in many states it is illegal for others to harass a nursing mother.
Either out of personal modesty or out of a desire to be polite to those who don't like to see strangers' bare breasts, many moms try to be as discrete as possible. Here are some tips:
- Wear clothes suitable for nursing. There are special clothes made just for this purpose, but you should be able to nurse discretely with a normal shirt by pulling it up or unbuttoning it from the bottom. It also helps if you wear a jacket to hide the baby.
- Wear a sling. The extra cloth will hide you and the baby.
- Practice. When you first bring your first child home, you'll probably need to expose the entire breast while you and the baby learn how to nurse. Once you're comfortable nursing normally, you can practice nursing the way you would in public to prepare yourself. Stand in front of a full-length mirror to see how you look or as your husband or a good friend to see if you're covered.
- Feed your baby as soon as she looks hungry. A crying baby will attract attention and you'll have a harder time getting him to latch on properly.
- Use a bottle of expressed milk. This involves planning ahead, so you can't depend on it too heavily.
Expressed Breast Milk
To give your baby breast milk even when you're separated or if you or the baby are incapable of breastfeeding normally, you can draw you milk out into a cup or bottle. While it's possible to do this manually, you should get (buy or rent) a breast pump if at all possible.
Choosing a Pump
There are a variety of different pumps, and different ones may be best for different pumping needs. If you're feeding your baby with only expressed milk, you may want to rent a hospital-grade pump, which is very large but can pump most efficiently, which may be necessary to get enough milk and maintain a suitable milk supply.
If you'll be working away from your baby, you'll probably want a smaller electric pump. It may be important to you to pick a quiet pump. Some pumps are battery-powered, can plug into the wall, or both. You'll probably want one with adjustable suction, or you might find it really uncomfortable.
If you only need to pump on rare occasions, or if noise and price are significant concerns, you probably want a manual pump.
Storing
Storing milk in small amounts, such as 2 to 4 ounces, may help you avoid wasting any.
Click here for the La Leche League guidelines for storing human milk.
Warming and Thawing
You should not heat stored breast milk in a microwave or on the stove. A good way to warm cold or frozen milk is to heat a pan of water, remove it from the heat source once it becomes warm, and then set the bottle in it.
Returning to Work
When to return to work is an important and difficult decision regardless of how you feed your baby, but there are a few concerns specifically related to breastfeeding.
Most likely, you will need the father or other caregiver to feed the baby expressed breast milk from a bottle while you are gone. It is recommended that you feed the baby straight from your breast for at least the first six weeks to establish good breastfeeding habits, or else the baby may grow to prefer the bottle and refuse the breast. However, it may take a few days of trying before you can get the baby to accept a bottle.
Some mothers have a lot of luck just taking their babies to school or work with them.