Breast milk is a perfect food for the human infant
as it contains all the nutrients vital for healthy
growth and development, plus beneficial microbes
that promote a healthy gut microbiome
Prematurely born babies who received their mother’s
milk had a 46 to 90 percent reduced risk of
developing retinopathy of prematurity, an eye
disease that in 10 percent of severe cases causes
blindness
Nearly 17 percent of women who lactated for a month
or less had atherosclerotic plaques, a risk factor
for heart disease, compared with less than 11
percent of those who breastfed for 10 months or
longer
By Dr. Mercola
Contrary to what infant formula companies want you to
believe, infant formula cannot replace breast milk when it comes
to protecting your baby's health and promoting healthy long-term
development.
In fact, breastfeeding offers a long list of life-long health
benefits not just for the baby but for mother as well.
Considering the fact that babies have been successfully
raised on breast milk since the beginning of mankind, it stands
to reason that breast milk is a perfect food in every way,
providing a growing infant with everything it needs.
Modern science confirms this logic, and it is my hope that
more women start reevaluating their choice to substitute
breastfeeding with infant formulas.
Nursing even has health benefits beyond nutrition. As noted
in the video above, breastfeeding helps expand your child's
palate and allows his oral cavity to develop properly, which
helps prevent breathing disorders such as snoring and
sleep apnea, and all the health risks associated with such
sleep disruptions.
Breast Milk Is a Complete Food
As noted in the featured article in The Stranger:1
"Colostrum, the thick golden liquid that first comes
out of a woman's breasts after giving birth ... is
engineered to be low in fat but high in carbohydrates and
protein, making it quickly and easily digestible ...
Mature breast milk, which typically comes in a few
days after a woman has given birth, is 3 to 5 percent fat
and holds an impressive list of minerals and vitamins:
sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, phosphorous, and
vitamins A, C, and E.
Long chain fatty acids like DHA (an omega-3) and AA
(an omega-6) — both critical to brain and nervous-system
development — also abound in mother's milk.
The principal carbohydrate in breast milk is lactose,
which provides copious calories and energy to fuel babies'
relentless round-the-clock growth ...
Other sugars are also present, including some 150
oligosaccharides ... complex chains of sugars unique to
human milk ... These oligosaccharides can't be digested by
infants; they exist to feed the microbes that populate a
baby's digestive system.
And speaking of microbes, there's a ton of them in
breast milk ... much like yogurt and naturally fermented
pickles and kefir, that keep our digestive systems
functioning properly."
Besides healthy bacteria, breast milk is also loaded with
nutrient growth factors that support the growth of beneficial
bacteria, along with components that inhibit the growth of bad
bacteria and yeast.
So breast milk really "primes" your baby's gut and promotes
the colonization of a healthy
microbiome. This, we now know, is critical for both short-
and long-term health.
Another important nutrient in breast milk that is not found
in infant formula is cholesterol, which provides other crucial
components for the formation of healthy nerve tissues.
Breast Milk Offers Natural Immunity
As noted in the featured article,2
"Not nearly enough people know about this mind-blowing
characteristic of breast milk: It changes daily based on signals
from the baby." Indeed, it's not just vitamins, minerals,
proteins, and fats that make breast milk far superior to
formula.
For starters, breast milk also contains antibodies, or immune
molecules, that provide the baby with natural immunity to
illnesses that the mother is immune to. This is why breastfed
babies tend to have far fewer colds than formula fed babies.
Breastfed babies also have fewer ear, respiratory, stomach,
and intestinal infections than their formula-fed counterparts.
Perhaps even more remarkable, when a newborn is exposed to a
germ, he or she will transfer it back to the mother while
nursing.
The mother will then make antibodies to that particular germ
and transfer them back to the baby at the next feeding, thereby
speeding up the recovery process and promoting future immunity
toward the organism, should it be encountered again.
Breast milk also contains growth factors that significantly
enhance your baby's gut and brain development, and even helps
augment emotional perception and social development.3
It may also help prevent obesity later in life, and offers
protection against diseases such as
type 2 diabetes.
Variations in Breast Milk Linked to Differences in Infant
Obesity
Previous research has shown that children of obese mothers
have an increased risk of future obesity, but recent research4,5
suggests the composition of a mother's breast milk may be a far
more significant factor, and it goes back to the
oligosaccharides mentioned earlier.
Twenty-five pairs of mothers and infants were included in the
study, which found that infant growth and obesity was linked to
variations in the complex carbohydrates (milk oligosaccharides)
in the mothers' milk.
At 6 months of age, children whose mother's milk contained
higher levels of two particular oligosaccharides gained about 1
pound more body fat than those with lower levels.
Other oligosaccharides were found to be protective against
obesity at 6 months, with one particular oligosaccharide being
associated with a 1-pound lower fat mass.
According to the authors of this study, individual breast
milk composition was more predictive of infant obesity than
maternal obesity and pregnancy weight gain. Oligosaccharides are
complex carbohydrates unique to breast milk.
Their primary function, besides providing energy for rapid
growth, is to feed the microbes in your baby's digestive tract,
and numerous studies have demonstrated that the makeup of your
gut microbiome can have a significant bearing on your weight.
Please note that milk oligosaccharides are not found in
infant formula. They're unique to breast milk. Sugars in breast
milk and infant formula are NOT the same. Infant formulas
typically have processed corn syrup and refined sugar as their
largest ingredient, both of which are high in fructose.
In fact, many infant formulas have as much sugar as a can of
soda. Fructose has NONE of the benefits of lactose and comes
with a long list of adverse metabolic effects.6
There is a good deal of evidence that the addition of
fructose to virtually every processed food on grocery store
shelves today, including infant formula, is largely responsible
for the explosion of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Research
published in the journal Diabetes Cares hows that formula-fed
babies are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes as
adolescents.7
Breast Milk Helps Protect Preemies Against Blindness
Breast milk may be particularly important for preemies.
Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is an eye disease that in 10
percent of severe cases causes blindness. More than half of
preemies born before 30 weeks of gestation are afflicted, and up
to 50,000 children around the globe go blind as a result of it
each year. A recent analysis suggests this number could be
reduced by more than 50 percent if all preemies were fed breast
milk.
The analysis looked at five studies published between 2001
and 2013, and found that prematurely born babies who received
their mother's milk had a 46 to 90 percent reduced risk of
developing ROP. The wide gap was due to variations in the amount
of milk they received, and how severe their condition was. As
reported by NPR:8
"Infants who exclusively received breast milk had 89
percent reduced odds of severe ROP compared to infants who
received any formula. Infants who received a mixture of
breast milk and formula had roughly half the odds of
developing severe ROP compared to infants exclusively
receiving formula.
The analysis included a very large older study that
had found no reduced risk for ROP from breast milk, but most
infants in that study received less than 20 percent breast
milk."
Breast milk has also been shown to reduce other complications
associated with premature birth, including:
Necrotizing enterocolitis, a severe gastrointestinal
disease
Blood infections
Lung disease
How Breastfeeding Benefits the Mother
In the short-term, nursing helps a woman shed that extra
"baby weight" she put on during pregnancy. That alone is reason
enough to breastfeed for many women, but the benefits go far
beyond that. For example, recent research9
suggests breastfeeding may reduce a woman's risk of
cardiovascular disease later in life.
Starting in 1985, the cardiovascular risk factors in 846
women were recorded. Twenty years later, the women underwent
ultrasound to measure the thickness of their carotid arteries.
Thicker arteries are a risk factor for heart disease. As
reported in The New York Times:10
"After controlling for many other risk factors,
including race, blood pressure, B.M.I., age, and cholesterol
levels, they found that the less time a woman breastfed, the
thicker her carotid arteries. In addition, almost 17 percent
of women who lactated for a month or less had
atherosclerotic plaques, compared with less than 11 percent
of those who breastfed for 10 months or longer.
Pregnancy makes the cardiovascular system work
harder, increasing the risk for cardiovascular disease, and
the authors suggest that lactation helps restore maternal
physiological systems to their pre-pregnancy state."
Other studies11
have also shown breastfeeding benefits the mother by:
Enhancing maternal behavior through increased
release of
oxytocin, a hormone referred to as the "love
hormone," or "bonding hormone"
Acting as a natural birth control, as it suppresses
ovulation, making pregnancy less likely
Reducing diabetic mothers' need for insulin, as
lactation lowers glucose levels naturally
Reducing the risk of women with gestational diabetes
from becoming lifelong diabetics.
In one recent study,12
a woman's risk of progressing from gestational diabetes
to type 2 diabetes was inversely associated with length
and intensity of breastfeeding
Reducing your risk of endometrial, ovarian, and
breast cancers, including hormone receptor negative
tumors,13
which are a very aggressive form of breast cancer
Reducing your risk of metabolic syndrome
New Moms Need More Support
Hospitals also need to do a better job when it comes to
promoting breastfeeding, and supporting women who want, but may
struggle, to nurse. While some women cannot, for a variety of
reasons, breastfeed, most can. More often than not, they simply
need a little bit of guidance and support.
As noted in a recent CNN article,14
only 14 percent of babies born in the U.S. are born in hospitals
offering breast-feeding support according to the global
standard, which includes, but is not limited to, teaching
nursing techniques and feeding cues, and allowing the father and
baby to stay in the same room as the mother to facilitate
round-the-clock nursing.
Perhaps even more egregious, most hospitals insist on giving
infant formula to breastfed babies, sometimes against the
mother's wishes, which can make breastfeeding more difficult. As
a society (and employers especially), we really need to provide
new moms with the support and the means to breastfeed. In some
cases, it's a matter of knowing your rights. According to the
Affordable Care Act, nursing mothers who work have the right to:
Reasonable break times to express breast milk during
your work day, for up to one year after the birth of your
child
A private place to pump other than a bathroom
Do You Need Help Breastfeeding?
The majority of women are able to produce adequate supplies
of milk and breastfeed successfully. One common misperception is
that you're not producing enough milk. It's important to realize
that the more your baby nurses, the more milk you will produce.
This is why supplementing with formula can be detrimental to
your milk supply. Nursing moms also need to drink plenty of
water and seek optimal nutrition while nursing. The first few
weeks and months are critical in the process.
You should begin nursing as soon after birth as possible, as
your baby's sucking instinct will be very strong at that time,
giving you the best chance of success. In the beginning, the
milk that is produced is called colostrum – a thick,
golden-yellow fluid that is very gentle for your baby's stomach
and full of beneficial antibodies. As your baby continues to
nurse, your milk will gradually change in color and consistency
from thick and yellow, to thinner with a bluish-white hue.
Newborns need to nurse at least once every two hours, for
about 15 minutes or so on each side, but most do not adhere to
any kind of strict schedule and feedings can vary in length. It
is this frequent nursing that stimulates your breasts to produce
increasing amounts of milk to keep up with demand.
You may want to begin planning for successful breastfeeding
before your baby is even born by taking a breastfeeding class
while you're pregnant. La Leche League15
is a terrific resource to contact for help whether you want to
prepare beforehand or find you're having trouble breastfeeding
once your baby is born.
Also find out whether your hospital of choice offers
breastfeeding classes and lactation consultants who can help
you. If it doesn't, you may want to select a hospital that
offers greater support.
Healthier Alternatives to Infant Formula
I encourage you to do all you can to breastfeed your baby
successfully, and exclusively, for at least the first six
months; and longer if possible. This is one of the best gifts
you can give to your child and the health benefits will last a
lifetime. If you find yourself unable to breastfeed, or you have
adopted your newborn, you may want to consider using
donated breast milk.
Unfortunately, there is a major downside to using breast milk
from human milk banks that are now available in the U.S. The
milk has been pasteurized, which means many of the essential
immune-building elements will be decimated in the pasteurization
process and your infant will fail to receive this crucial
support when they need it the most.
So while human milk banks are a fantastic idea, the sad
reality is that milk obtained from them – assuming it is
pasteurized, as is standard process at most milk banks – is far
inferior to breast milk that is unpasteurized. An alternative
may be to work with a physician or pediatrician who is willing
to help you find a safe milk donor, and who will be involved in
a screening process to ensure the milk is safe.
If you're unable to breastfeed or find a safe source
of breast milk, your next best bet is to make your own infant
formula. There may be others, but here is one
recipe for homemade formula created by the Weston Price
Foundation, which I believe is sound.
Please steer clear of commercial infant formulas as much as
possible. They're far too high in refined sugar for optimal
health, and sets your child on the path of craving sugar.
Definitely
avoid soy infant formula, as it is loaded with dangerously
high levels of toxic elements like manganese and aluminum. Soy
formula is among the absolute worst commercial foods you could
give your baby. However, even milk-based infant formulas have
been found to be
contaminated with chemical additives (including some
boasting the "organic" label), and is best avoided.