Benefits for Babies

Breast milk is the perfect infant nutrition; it is sterile, easy to digest, and will satisfy both hunger and sucking needs. It contains more than two hundred known nutritional and functional components, while manufactured infant formula contains only roughly half of these known components.

Breastfeeding provides strong protection against numerous threats to baby’s health, such as: primary and secondary diseases, viral and bacterial infections, and allergies. Research offers strong evidence that breast milk decreases the incidence and/or severity of disease and allows for quicker recovery from distresses. Infant mortality rate, acute infections, and hospitalizations are reduced for breastfed babies.

Baby receives the most valuable living immunities on an ongoing basis from mother’s milk, which offer protection while he develops his own immune system. As the mother continues to breastfeed, her milk changes, giving her older baby higher protective effects he'll need as he explores a germ-filled environment. The longer baby breastfeeds, the stronger the protective effect.

Breastfed babies generally crawl and walk sooner than formula-fed infants. Since the flavor of human milk varies according to mother’s diet, breastfed babies develop more fully their senses of taste and smell. Several studies that measure the intelligence quotient (IQ) of breastfed infants compared to formula-fed infants showed breastfed infants had, on average, a 3.18 higher IQ than formula-fed babies.

To many, the major benefit to breastfeeding is the emotional well-being it instills in both mother and child. This connection, facilitated through breastfeeding, provides baby with comfort – physically, emotionally, and psychologically. It also contributes to his cognitive development. Continued breastfeeding also increases a child’s coping mechanism during stressful times. Psychological benefits to baby continue even after breastfeeding ceases.