Breast Feeding vs. Bottle Feeding- Nutrition Health Benefits

Breast Feeding Verses Bottle Formula Feeding Nutrition Benefits

Deciding whether or not to breastfeed your newborn usually has to do with your lifestyle, because breastfeeding is definitely more work. You have to deal with the schedule, pump your breasts when you aren't around your baby, find adequate storage for the milk and then see that your baby gets enough to feed on whether you and your breasts are there or not. Most of the time, women make decisions about breast feeding because of their work schedule: most jobs don't allow you the time or flexibility to bring your baby in for feedings every two to four hours! (But they should!)

Breast Feeding Health Benefits

Medical evidence is clear: breast milk results in healthier babies, stronger immune systems and better bonding between moms and infants. The ingredients in breast milk measurably increase babies' resistance to illness and infection, cause them to gain weight faster than bottle fed babies and longer term create children who suffer fewer childhood diseases. And those are just the things that medical science can measure! What medical science has difficulty in measuring is also important: there are so many things we still don't know about how the thoughts and feelings of the mother become important components of the actual milk, and how they work in the baby's body. What science has measured though, is the fact that breastfeeding as a process strongly influences the health and happiness of the infant and the mother. Babies who are breastfed go to sleep faster, and are more easily soothed than bottle babies. When research compares the health of babies who are breastfed to babies who are bottle fed, as long as the mothers of the breastfed babies provide enough milk and are healthy themselves, the breastfed baby comes out ahead. And the nursing mother experiences greater bonding with her baby as well as the benefit of easier post-delivery weight loss: breastfeeding burns up about an extra 500 calories a day, or 3,500 a week, which amounts to a one-pound per week weight loss just by breastfeeding.

Benefits of Formula Bottle Feeding

There are real and legitimate reasons to bottle feed your baby. If you don't have enough milk, your doctor will probably recommend that you combine breast and bottle feeding so your baby gets enough to eat. If you have an illness that either affects the quality of your breastmilk or makes it difficult to keep a reasonable weight when nursing, your Ob-gyn may recommend bottle feeding. But these are rare instances, and most of the time, women who decide to stop breastfeeding early in their child's development or right after leaving the hospital do so because their lives make breastfeeding too inconvenient. Many women can't afford to quit their jobs to stay home and nurse a baby, and most jobs still don't make allowances for nursing mothers to do what they need to do.

Lactation Research to Help You Breast Feed Your Infant

Some mothers give up on breast feeding because they have a difficult time learning to nurse their babies. This usually happens because they haven't had the proper training: with more hospitals shoving the mother out the door right with the sweat still on her brow, more new mothers don't get the help and advice they need about breastfeeding. This extremely natural act doesn't in fact come naturally: you may need training in teaching your newborn how to latch on, or in different holding techniques. You may feel it's silly that part of being a mother may include studies in the best breastfeeding methods, but keep it in mind; babies aren't born knowing just how to suckle, and new moms need some teaching too.

Lactation continues for a time whether or not you decide to bottle feed, so even moms who decide to use formula have to get rid of the excess milk in their bodies until it dries up on its own. Part of the regular equipment of motherhood, a breast pump, bottles for storage and serving bottles are useful to new mothers whether they are breastfeeding or not.