Put your baby to the test!
Regarding the question of breast feeding your baby:
Do it.
Best for the child; bets for the mother. According to La Leche League, there are definite benefits for baby. They cite the book "The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding" quite a bit, too:
Benefits for Baby
Chapter 18 of THE WOMANLY ART OF BREASTFEEDING, "The Superior Infant Food," documents the benefits of breastfeeding such as the antibodies in it to protect the baby from illness. For example, "Deaths from respiratory infections in artificially fed infants were 120 times greater than among breastfed babies" (THE WOMANLY ART OF BREASTFEEDING, page 345). Breastfed babies have a decreased likelihood for allergies and dental caries. They also benefit from appropriate jaw, teeth and speech development as well as overall facial development. This means that people who were artificially fed may experience more trips to doctors and dentists.
Benefits for Mother
Chapter 19 of THE WOMANLY ART OF BREASTFEEDING, "How Breastfeeding Affects a Mother," describes some of the physical benefits of breastfeeding for the mother such as reduced rates of breast cancer and ovarian cancer. The time saved for mother is immense also. As a breastfeeding mother, you can feed your baby even during stressful times such as when normal supplies of food and water are not available.
Even the formula manufacturers are on the side of breastfeeding:
From the Nestle' website...
Breastmilk is nature's most perfect food for your baby. That's why the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), an organization of more than 53,000 physicians who specialize in caring for children, recommends breastmilk as the primary source of nutrition for baby's first year of life. Here are breastfeeding highlights:
1) Doctors agree breastmilk is the best source of nutrition for your baby because it's easy to digest, helps baby avoid food allergies and gives him protective antibodies to help fight off illness.
2) Begin breastfeeding as soon as possible after birth. Make sure your health-care provider knows that you plan to breastfeed your baby. When you're admitted to the hospital, ask the labor and delivery room nurse to notify the nursery that you will be breastfeeding. Nurse your baby as soon after delivery as possible, preferably within the first hour after birth. Your baby benefits right away from the easy-to-digest proteins, vitamins, and minerals-as well as from protective antibodies-in colostrum, the yellowish, translucent fluid that your breasts secrete for the first two to three days. In addition to helping both of you adjust to breastfeeding, frequent and early nursing also helps increase your milk production and helps your baby have his first bowel movement.
The website lists seven total benefits of breastfeeding.
My wife is currently breastfeeding our six month old infant. He is thriving from breast milk, and my wife is very happy. This hasn't always been the case. We have four children and only two have been exclusively breast-fed. My oldest took to it like a champ. He wasn't weaned until about twelve or thirteen months old, when he was transitioned to solid food. To add to the complication, at the time my wife was working. She still was able to nurse our oldest son; we had it worked out pretty well. She was working nights, after I was home from my job. She'd nurse him before work, leaving a bottle of expressed milk in the fridge for me, and I would drive the baby to her on her lunch break (around 7 or 8 pm) and she'd nurse him while eating her dinner.
Our second son was premature, and did not develop the sucking reflex. He was not thriving at all, and in fact started to lose weight at around five months old. He was listless and hungry all the time. We were very concerned, and so we switched him over to formula. This was devastating to my wife, who felt she had failed as a mother. She felt betrayed by the child, as well, and it took a lot of soul-searching on her part to get over the breast-feeding issue. But when we saw our baby thriving and happy, gaining weight, laughing, smiling, and interacting, we knew it was the right thing to do.
Our third child lost interest in the breast at about five months. She was not underfed; she just simply refused it. She was very easily distracted by background noise (and with two older kids in the house, it was often), and would latch off and look around to see what was going on. We had to move her to the bottle in order for her to get enough food, and that transition was much less awkward because we'd already been through the trauma with our second son.
There is also the social side of breastfeeding in public, which is awkward, somewhat obvious, and may be offensive to some. To them I say poo. A pox on your house. My wife is doing what's best for our child. She's covered up; what do you care what she does underneath that baby blue blanket?
So any thoughts? Any stories out there about your own experiences? Breastfeeding good? Breastfeeding bad? How does one weigh the social and work implications of breastfeeding? Anyone out there just totally against breastfeeding? Or think it's just unfeasible?