The Importance of Breastfeeding

The public health topic that I chose was breastfeeding.
I chose this topic because, I have always heard how much better breastfeeding is for infants than any formula, but so little mothers actually do it. So, I wanted to look more into this because when I am blessed with a child, I want to beast feed.

First, babies who are exclusively breast-fed are less likely to get sick because breast milk provides antibodies against any disease to which the mother is immune. It also decrease the risk of many diseases that appear in childhood and adulthood such as asthma, obesity, and heart disease (Berger, 2009).
Also, specific fats and sugars in breast milk make it more digestible and better for the infant brain.

Since breastfeeding is so healthy for infants and highly recommended in the US, I decided to see how the Asian culture felt about breastfeeding.

1.) They believe that drinking the colostrum ( a thick, high calorie fluid from the woman's breasts a following birth) will allow a woman who cannot provide breast milk to begin production.

2.) Asian mothers lean over the supine infant, resting on a bar that runs above the cradle for support to feed their babies. This is due to the fact of their belief that nutrients are heavier and will move into the infant faster.

3.) 160,000 infants die each year due to decline in breastfeeding.

4.) The World Health Organization (WHO) warned that babies less than 5 months who were not exclusively breastfed were at much higher risk of diarrhea and pneumonia which often prove deadly  in developing countries.

From what I have learned, I believe it is very important to promote the positive health benefits of breastfeeding vs. formula milk. This could cut down on diseases and illnesses in infants.
New mothers may not know what to do or what to expect when it comes to breastfeeding, so I believe a breastfeeding seminar or class for pregnant women would be very beneficial. We all need to keep in mind that we want only the best for our babies, so we should do the right thing by giving them the best nutrition possible, by breastfeeding!


References:
http://medindia.net/news/decline-in-breastfeeding-linked-to-child-deaths-in-Asia-UNICEF-22376-1.htm

www.ispub.com/ostia/index.php?xmlFilePath=journals/ijnw/vol2nl/feeding.xml