Breastfeed for a healthier future!
Breastfeeding your baby is the first form of life insurance you sign for your baby. All mothers are advised to breastfeed their babies for a minimum of 6 months, but what they fail to understand completely is why they should do so.
Breast milk provides all the nutrients (water, sugar, fat etc.) your baby needs to be healthy. It also contains many substances that benefit your baby’s immune system, including antibodies, immune factors, enzymes, and white blood cells. With inputs from Ms. Emilie Moulard, Managing Director, Medela India, we have managed to understand the importance of breastfeeding for a baby in a better way.
According to the Lancet Breastfeeding Series of 2016, “Breastfeeding all babies for the first two years would save the lives of more than 823,000 children under age 5 annually”. They have also introduced 10 new guidelines to promote breastfeeding and spread awareness around its benefits. Over the years, as per WHO the neo-natal mortality rates have not reduced nearly as rapidly as child mortality rates because of the lack of awareness and the lack of support towards breastfeeding.
What many people are unaware of, is that breastfeeding offers multiple health benefits to both mother and child. It is specially designed to cater to all your child’s nutritional needs in the first six months of life. Mother’s milk helps form an increased resistance to infections, therefore, resulting in fewer incidents of illness and hospitalization. Eventually, in the long run, breastfed babies have a decreased risk of malnutrition, obesity and heart disease compared to formula-fed babies. Mother’s milk has long-term benefits for your baby which last right into adulthood and any amount of it will always be positive. The longer you breastfeed your child the better protection you are providing him/ her and the benefits last longer.