Why Breastfeed?

Breastfeeding provides many nutritional and health benefits to your baby.

• Breast-Feeding Best Bet for Babies. New parents want to give their babies the very best. When it comes to nutrition, the best first food for babies is breast milk. More than two decades of research have established that breast milk is perfectly suited to nourish infants and protect them from illness. Breast-fed infants have lower rates of hospital admissions, ear infections, diarrhea, rashes, allergies, and other medical problems than bottle-fed babies. (FDA - U.S. Food and Drug Administration)
• The protein in breast milk "kick-starts" a baby's immune system. (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)
• It is estimated that artificially fed children have 14 times as many hospitalizations as breastfed babies. (The Journal of Human Lactation, No. 2, 1993)
• The World Health Organization and many other experts encourage women to breastfeed for as long as possible, one year or even longer, because human milk provides the best nutrition and protection against infections. (Breastfeeding Guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics) The AAP also recommends that infants consume breast milk exclusively for the first six months of life, thereafter combining breast milk with slowly introduced solid foods through the end of the first year.
• There are over 100 nutritional components of breast milk not found in formula that are especially beneficial, including: cholesterol, an important component of brain tissue and the biochemical basis for many enzymes in the body; and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), which is important for a baby's brain function and visual and auditory development.
• Breastfeeding significantly reduces the incidence and severity of diabetes, childhood cancer, obesity, and asthma, as well as diminishing a baby's risk of allergies, diarrheal infections, ear infections, lower-respiratory infections, bacterial meningitis, urinary tract infections, and many diseases. Studies have shown that even four months of breastfeeding may lower the incidence of some childhood-onset cancers, Crohn's disease, Hodgkin's disease, and childhood-onset diabetes. (American Academy of Pediatrics)
• And with regard to diabetes and improving glucose homeostasis, a new study suggests that breastfeeding may have similar protective qualities for both infants and their mothers. Women who breast-fed for at least one year were about 15 percent less likely to develop type 2 diabetes than those who never breast-fed their infants. For each additional year of breast-feeding, there was an additional 15 percent decreased risk. (Journal of American Medical Association, Volume 294 No. 20, November 2005)
• Breast milk delivers passive and active antibodies to all of the diseases the mother has been exposed to.
• Breast milk enhances cognitive scores and acts as an analgesic during painful medical procedures. (American Academy of Pediatrics)
• A study following rural Chinese mothers found that those who breastfed for two years or longer reduced their risk of breast cancer by 50 percent. (American Journal of Epidemiology) Additional benefits for mothers include a reduced risk of ovarian cancer as well as an earlier return to pre-pregnancy weight.
• Mothers who choose to breastfeed build healthier bones for themselves. Although lactation initially causes bone loss, the "lost" bone is recovered within two years of delivery with new bone. Breastfeeding offers mothers the unique opportunity to repair or remodel tiny bone fractures, which could actually make bones stronger and more resistant to osteoporosis fractures later in life. (Baylor College of Medicine) Johns Hopkins University is now conducting a study to determine the positive impact of pregnancy on bone structure.
• In a 1994 study, breast cancer rates were compared between women who had breastfed for various lengths of time and women who never lactated. If you set the frequency of pre-menopausal breast cancer among the women who never lactated at 1.00, then the relative risk of breast cancer for women who had lactated was: lactated 3 months or less .85; lactated 4-12 months .78; lactated 13-24 months .66; lactated 24+ months .72; and for all who lactated .78. (Newcomb, P.A., et. al. The New England Journal of Medicine 330(2): 81-87)
• Also in 1994, a study looked at whether having been breastfed protected women from breast cancer when they grew up. For both pre-menopausal and post-menopausal breast cancer, women who were breastfed as children, even if only for a short time, had a 25% lower risk of developing breast cancer than women who were bottle-fed as an infant. (Freudenheim, J., et. al. Epidemiology 5: 324-331)
• Leukemia is the leading cause of cancer deaths in children under age 15 in the United States. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) accounted for 78% of all U.S. childhood leukemia cases diagnosed form 1975 to 1995, while acute myeloid leukemia (AML) accounted for 16%. Recent studies have suggested that children who breastfed longer than 6 months had a 24% reduced risk of ALL and a 15% reduced risk of AML. Short-term breastfeeding (shorter than 6 months), similarly, was protective for ALL (12% reduced risk) and for AML (10% reduced risk). (Environmental Health Perspectives, Vol. 113, Number 2, February 2005)
• Breastfeeding may protect children against gluten intolerance or celiac disease. Gluten is a protein found in cereals such as wheat, rye, and barley, and infants who were being regularly breastfed when they were first introduced to foods containing gluten cut their risk of developing celiac disease by 52% compared with those who were not being breastfed. (Archives of Disease in Childhood, November 2005)
• Breastfeeding is an ecologically sound choice as the production and packaging of infant formulas takes a heavy toll on the earth's resources. An estimated 87,230 tons of tin and paper end up in landfills due to formula consumption. (La Leche League, May 2002)
• Breastfeeding saves money - a potential annual savings from exclusive breastfeeding of $3.6 billion in decreased costs of public health programs, reduced absenteeism, and reduced environmental and energy burdens. (American Academy of Pediatrics)
• Breastfeeding clearly improves the health of infants and mothers and seems to result in cost savings for parents, insurers, employers, and society, meaning that the medical and economic value of breastfeeding is high. To reap the health and economic benefits associated with breastfeeding, society must support breastfeeding promotion, which most likely will necessitate a coordinated U.S. breastfeeding program. The U.S. government is in a unique position to accomplish this goal as it views the associated costs from the joint perspectives of employer, health insurer, medical provider, and society. Through support of such a program, the U.S. government likely will benefit significantly by improving the health of children and its financial bottom line. (Department of Pediatrics and Steele Memorial Research Center, University of Arizona, Tucson, February 2001)