Breast Feeding Benefits
I’ll tell you right up front that I do not have children yet, and to be honest, I’m not sure if children will ever be in the cards for me, but if I do, I will ultimately have to make a list of the benefits and downside of breast feeding. It’s just a personal choice that boils down to a lot of different factors in the end, and it’s a very individual choice too, so you should never let someone else dictate this choice for you.
Motherhood is a very special thing, and I think you should go into it having only the best intentions for your child, and realistic expectations and trials and tribulations of the joys that motherhood will bring you. Be sure to check out our page on ways to increase breast milk production also, as this is a common concern for new moms.
One of the biggest decisions that you have to make when you have a child, and that I would also have to make if I were to ever have a baby too, is whether or not you are going to breast feed them as an infant.
There are so many arguments for breast feeding being the best thing that you can do for your baby that it’s almost hard these days to resist the multiple studies and evidence there is that breast feeding is of a huge benefit to your child. There are even herbal preparations that increase milk production, because some women refuse to bottle feed their child, even if they are not producing enough breast milk on their own.
I figured I would share with you the items I’d consider when deciding on whether to breast feed if I were to have a child. They range from superficial to the nitty gritty, physiological benefits to child, and also to mother. There are downsides to everything as you know, and the same is true for breast feeding.
There is really no downside to it for your child though that I know of, so it mostly becomes a personal choice based on your life and how you live it, your job, your comfort levels, and so on and so forth.
Here are some of the benefits that it may give you as a mother. When you breast feed your infant, it supposedly burns quite a few calories. This can be quite helpful when you have just had a baby, since you of course usually want to start shedding that baby weight as quickly as you can. Some doctors even recommend that you get extra calories in your diet if you are breast feeding so that you can maintain a healthy weight.
You release a hormone called oxytocin when you breast feed. This is said to be partly responsible for the bond between mother and child, as this hormone is the “bonding” hormone. It is also released by women when they have sexual intercourse or intimate relations with someone, and this is why it is thought that for women sex is different than it is for men.
In other words, it’s why guys can have sex and not feel bonded to their partner, for men there has to be a psychological as well as sexual connection because they do not release this bonding hormone during sex.
Another benefit to breast feeding is that you save a boatload of money on formula, especially when that is all your infant is feeding on in the first few months of their life. Formula can be quite expensive as you know, and you want to try to save wherever you can when you have a baby since a lot more of your disposable income goes out the window.
Now, here are the benefits that breast feeding offers your baby. First off, experts believe that babies who breast feed actually have a better shot at developing an immunity faster because the antibodies that are in the mother’s body are passed on to the infant, giving them resilience against many different bugs right away.
It is also thought now to help a baby’s brain develop more efficiently, and even their organs possibly too. There is really no downside to an infant to breast feeding that I’ve ever read.
Now, there is a downside to breast feeding for moms though. First off, you really have to interrupt your life and your daily activities several times a day to pump when you go back to work, or if you stay home, when you’re at home.
This can be quite a nuisance. Your breasts often get sore and even chafed from the baby latching on all the time, and when they start to get the beginnings of teeth, if they are still breast feeding, then look out, you may have a problem with bite marks too potentially.
You usually have to wear nursing pads too, because you can have leakage problems as well during the times when you are not breast feeding. Many women also experience sagging and loss of breast tissue density after breast feeding, and see out natural ways to enlarge and plump out their breasts like breast cream for bigger breasts, and breast enhancement pills so that they can gill out this void again.
