Health Benefits

of Breast Milk for Your Baby

Health authorities such as the United States Surgeon General and the American Academy of Pediatrics agree that breast milk is the best form of nutrition for your baby during those first few, most vulnerable months of life. Both UNICEF and the World Health Organization advise breast-feeding to "two years and beyond." Quite simply, breast milk protects the infants against infections until they are ready to protect themselves.

Although, all human babies do receive some immunity during pregnancy, it is scientifically proven that infants have the benefit of gaining extra protection from an abundance of helpful antibodies, proteins and immune cells that can only be found in the breast milk. Mother’s milk actively helps the newborn avoid disease in a variety of ways.

Scientifically proven Baby Benefits from Breast Milk

• Mothers milk provides the baby with environment-specific antibodies which help the baby to fight against the infections it is most likely to encounter in the first weeks of life.

• Antibodies from mother’s milk only attach the infection causing bacteria and ignore the "good bacteria" in a baby’s gut. The "good bacteria" crowd out the growth of harmful organisms.

• Antibodies from breast milk fight infections in the baby’s body without causing inflammation, thus protecting the extremely delicate lining of your baby’s gut.

• In addition to these helpful antibodies, breast milk contains an abundance of various kinds of molecules, which help your baby in a variety of ways as follows:

Molecules such as simple chains of sugars intercept and adhere to the harmful bacteria and viruses and then eliminate those pathogens from your baby’s body.

Protein molecules such as lactoferrin found in breast milk deprive many serious illness causing bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus of essential nutrients, thereby stalling their growth.

Some hormones and growth factors help baby’s digestive tract lining to mature quickly, thereby making the infant less prone to attach from bacteria.

Some molecules promote the growth of beneficial organisms in your baby’s body whereas others can even damage the chicken pox virus.

• Breast milk also supplies the infant with many kinds of immune cells which actively fight against the infections themselves, and activate other defense mechanisms, thus strengthening your baby’s own immune response. Indeed, studies have shown that breast-fed babies produce higher levels of antibodies in response to immunization.

• Medical studies have shown that breast-fed babies are less prone to urinary tract infections, respiratory tract infections, childhood diabetes and childhood lymphoma than their formula-fed peers are. In addition, breast-fed preterm babies tend to have high IQs than their formula-fed peers.