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How does breastfeeding benefit your baby?

Researchers have found that breastfed babies have higher IQs of at least five points higher then formula fed infants. Researchers account 40% of the increase due to maternal bonding and the other 60% is from the nutritional value of the breast milk itself. Babies who were nursed up to six months saw the greatest increase, while babies who were nursed for two weeks or less showed no IQ benefit. The effects are long-lived and last through childhood and adolescence.

Researchers from the National Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion at the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have found that the more breast milk infants receive in the first six months of life, the less likely they are to suffer ear infections and diarrhea.

Researchers in Australia did a study of more than 2,000 children and found that exclusive breastfeeding for at least four months after birth reduced a child's risk of developing asthma by age 6.

Researchers at Ludwig Maximillians University in Munich, Germany, did a study of 9,357 children between the ages of 5 and 6, and found that children who were breastfed exclusively as babies (even for as little as three to five months) had a 35 percent lower chance of being obese than their formula-fed peers.

During a study of more than 2,200 children, it was discovered that those who were breastfed as babies were 21 percent less likely to develop two of the most common types of leukemia - acute lymphoblastic and acute myeloid leukemia - than children who were never breastfed. The longer breastfeeding continued, the more protection the child seemed to have against the cancer.

Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that breastfeeding cuts the risk of breast cancer by 20 percent in women aged 20 to 49 and by 30 percent in women aged 50 to 74, regardless of duration (one to three months, four to 12 months, or more than 13 months). They think that structural changes in breast tissue caused by breastfeeding may protect against cancer.

How does breastfeeding benefit you?

Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that breastfeeding cuts the risk of breast cancer by 20 percent in women aged 20 to 49 and by 30 percent in women aged 50 to 74, regardless of the length of time you breastfed for. They believe that structural changes in the breast tissue caused by nursing may protect against cancer.

Researchers from the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan studied 110 women, aged 20 to 40, all of whom gained about 35 pounds during pregnancy. Monitoring the women's weight at several intervals from birth to 18 months afterwards, the researchers found that those who breastfed lost weight more rapidly than their non-breastfeeding counterparts did. After 18 months, though, the rate of weight loss was almost the same for the two groups.

Healthcare professionals cannot say enough about the health benefits of breastfeeding. If you and your baby are both healthy and able, you may want to give nursing a try, at least for the first few weeks, so your natural immunities can be passed to your child. Alternatively, consider doing both. Many women combine breastfeeding and formula feeding.

Even though breastfeeding has many, many benefits there are plenty of reasons why women choose formula over breastfeeding:

• Having a baby with a poor sucking reflex (common in premature babies)
• Prolonged mother-infant separation
• Painful nursing
• The fear that your baby isn't getting enough milk
• The need to return to work
• A health problem that requires medication that shouldn't be passed to the nursing infant
• A desire to involve other family members in the feeding process.

Formula feeding with a bottle is a healthy choice for babies too, either right from the start or after nursing. If you are concerned about your choice, try to separate medical facts from the political and cultural rhetoric. Remember, the most important thing you can do for your baby is love and nurture her, and that includes feeding her in the way that you choose.

Formula products today are designed to nutritionally simulate breast milk as closely as possible. While they cannot pass along the resistance to infection that breast milk does, formulas provide ample nourishment for a growing baby. Most formulas are based on cow's milk or soybeans. Any formula you choose should be iron-fortified to prevent anemia.