Healthier and smarter kids

Dec 4, 2007 19:06 GMT  ·  By

Today, in many western countries, less than 1% of women breastfeed exclusively for the first six months of the baby's life. In UK, the categories most prone to breastfeeding were found to be well educated, professional women, older than 30 and mothers for the first time. The fear of ending up with the saggy boobs, commodity, lack of time and other factors have contributed to this. But why breastfeeding instead of using formula milk?

1.You know that colostrum, that yellowish milk secreted after birth, is the first package of immune factors for the infant's body.

2.Studies revealed that breastfed babies are five times less likely to get gastroenteritis as compared to formula-fed babies, and also two times less likely to catch respiratory disease in their first seven years of life as well as much less vulnerable to diabetes.

3.Breastfeeding leads to a higher intelligence coefficient in infants. This is due to two fatty acids: docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and arachidonic acid (AA) found in the maternal milk and which play an important role in the development of the brain cells. Children that consumed both DHA and AA got better scores in memory tests, problem solving and speech development than non-breastfed children.

4.The reason why people prefer their culture's cuisine could be... the maternal milk! If your mother drank carrot juice while pregnant or while breastfeeding you, you may have a sweet tooth for carrots. Mother's milk is better than the formula milk because it makes children more receptive to new foods and teach them which foods are not considered harmful.

5.Breastfeeding prevents children from turning overweight later in life. Research showed that children breastfed for 3-5 months had a 35 % lower chances of being overweight by the age of 6 than those who were not breastfed. In fact, the longer the breastfeeding period, the lower the chances of the child to be overweight later in life. It seems that the ingredients from the maternal milk improve the metabolism.