The Advantages of Breastfeeding

What are other benefits of breast-feeding? Let's consider a few. We think the Creator intended that your wife should not have an immediate return of her menstrual bleeding after having a baby. She has donated blood to the baby itself (not directly but via the ingredients), and she then loses some incident to its birth. The recovery phase from this loss after the baby is born should not be handicapped by menstruation. It's hard to build up a depleted savings account when regular withdrawals are made. The breasts serve as a valve to shut off menstruation by suppressing ovulation after the baby is born. Some women may have menstrual periods while breast-feeding (even these are lighter!), but most women do not.

Men hardly ever have "tired blood" or low levels of hemoglobin, but many women do. Prevention is better than the alcoholic elixirs advertised on TV as a cure for "tired blood." Breast-feeding mothers have higher blood levels. They are more energetic, feel better, and are more fun to live with and be around.

The uterus contracts by reflex during breast-feeding. This causes it tit to shrink back (involute) faster to its nonpregnant size. This means less backache, pelvic dragging feeling, varicose veins, etc., from a big, heavy uterus. If your wife bottle feeds, you're the one who has to live with this droop, remember.

Regardless of what method of baby-spacing you choose, the first to consider is nature's, especially if you're Roman Catholic in faith. It doesn't always work (which one does?), but it definitely postpones fertility after a baby is born. If used in conjunction with other methods, babies can be planned.

Then there is the psychological effect of this "womanly art" on your wife. She is more of a mother in her own eyes and those of her friends. Women who have failed to breast feed will tend to resent her and ridicule the procedure. Could their own slips be showing? Your wife. later on, having gradually weaned her babies from her breast t physically, will be better able to wean them from her psychologically when the time comes. Her children won't suffer from "Mom-ism." She will also be a more calm, kind, considerate person for you to live with. The close physical contact with baby triggers the outflow of true selfless compassion for all humanity. The intermittent peaceful moments during the day when she must sit down and hold her baby give her body rest and her soul peace.

What about the baby? From a strict nutritional standpoint cow's milk can be supplemented with vitamins and additives until it seems to contain all the chemicals necessary for growth. However, there's more to it than chemicals. The protein and other ingredients in milk seem to be specific for each species of animal. Cow's milk was designed for calves. Human milk for human babies. When the species are crossed, allergic reactions sometimes develop from "foreign" protein ingestion.

Even so, breast-fed babies are known to grow better, have fewer infections, have less colic, and be more content than the ones on the fanciest cow-milk formula yet devised. Why? For psychological reasons.

Let's recall, again, the intrauterine environment where the baby spent nine peaceful, dependent months. There were no stresses, no challenges that had to be met, no startling new experiences to have to adjust to. The advent of birth changed all this, as the baby began the first step toward eventual independence.

It's necessary to leave the comforts and serenity of home and go out into the unknown and conquer the dragons. But isn't it nice to come back home again, especially for some of that good old home cooking? Isn't it easier to digest your food in the familiar surroundings of home?

Babies are the same way. After leaving "home" they like to come back, temporarily, for dinner. When a mother holds her baby against the warmth of her skin it reproduces that 98.6-degree body warmth known before The smooth softness of the breast is similar in touch sensation to the lining of the uterus. Watch the baby fondle and caress to his nostrils. Is this how calves so accurately select their own mothers in a herd of similar-looking cows? Perhaps the individual protein content of her milk tells his taste buds he's home again.

Notes:

It's healthier for the mother and for the child.

Folksonomies: pregnancy childbirth breast feeding

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 Husband-Coached Childbirth (Fifth Edition): The Bradley Method of Natural Childbirth
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book:  Bradley , Hathaway , Hathaway , Hathaway (2008-05-20), Husband-Coached Childbirth (Fifth Edition): The Bradley Method of Natural Childbirth, Bantam, Retrieved on 2011-05-21
Folksonomies: pregnancy childbirth


Schemas

01 JAN 2010

 Baby Care Memes

A collection of memes to help me keep track of what behaviors to emulate and avoid during and after pregnancy.
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