Breastfeeding

Why would you breastfeeding? Why not better is the question. This page was written in the importance of supporting and promoting breastfeeding for all moms and babies. UNICEF says that 1 million babies die each year as a result of an artificially fed formula, some die from diarrhoea and other intestinal disorders, some dying of malnutrition because their families can not afford to buy formula, and some die from diseases that the formula-fed babies are more likely to contract.

The last recommendation of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the U.S. Surgeon General recommends breastfeeding for one year.

New parents want to give their babies the best. When it comes to food, the first is the best 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 against disease. Breast-feeding babies get have lower rates of hospital admissions, ear infections, diarrhoea, rashes, allergies and other medical problems than bottle-fed babies.

"There are 4000 species of mammals, and they all have other milk. Breast milk is made for human babies, and it meets all their specific nutrient needs, "says Ruth Lawrence, MD, professor of pediatrics and obstetrics at the University of Rochester School of Medicine in Rochester, NY, and the spokesman of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Medical experts say increased breast-feeding would save consumers money spent, both on infant formula and in health care dollars. It can save lives as well.

"We have known for years that the mortality rates in Third World countries are lower in breast-fed babies," says Lawrence. "Breast-feeding babies are given healthier and have fewer infections than formula-fed babies."

Although breast feeding is still the best food for infants, infant is a second close enough that babies not only survive but thrive.

Commercially prepared formulas are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration.

The nutritional adequacy of commercially prepared formula is also guaranteed by the agency in nutrients and their safety due to the strict quality control procedures that require manufacturers to analyze each batch of the formula for the necessary nutrients, the testing of samples for the stability in the life of the product, code containers for the identification of the party, and to all information available to FDA investigators.

The composition of infant formula is similar to breast milk, but it’s not ideal, because the precise chemical composition of breast milk is still unknown.

Breast milk is very complex, and scientists are still trying to unravel and understand what makes it such as a good source of nutrition for the rapidly growing and the development of infants.

More than half the calories in breast milk come from fat, and the same applies to the current infant formulas. This may be alarming to many American adults watching their intake of fat and cholesterol, especially as sources of saturated fats, such as coconut oil, are used in the formulas. (For adults, a high intake of saturated fats tend to blood cholesterol more than other fats or oils.) But the low-fat diet recommended for adults does not apply to babies.

The reason for this is that babies have a high energy requirement, and they have a limited amount of food that they can swallow. The way this energy in a limited amount of food is to have a large amount of fat.

Although a greater knowledge about human milk has contributed to the improvement of scientists infant has become "increasingly clear that infant formula can never duplicate breast milk," wrote John D. Benson, Ph.D, and Mark L. Masor, Ph.D., in the March 1994 issue of Endocrine regulations. "Breast milk contains living cells, hormones, enzymes active, immunoglobulins and compounds with unique structures that can not be copied in infant formula."

Benson and Masor, both of whom are children with nutrition researchers in infant manufacturer Abbott Laboratories, the creation of the opinion that the formula of duplicates breast milk is impossible. "A better goal is to track the performance of breast-feeding the baby," she wrote. Performance is measured by the baby’s growth, the absorption of nutrients, gastro-intestinal tolerance, and the reactions in the blood.