One of the most important things you can do for your baby is breast feed him. Breast milk is important because:
1. It is species appropriate milk. Human milk is meant for human babies.
2. It contains exactly the right levels of nutrients that he needs, unlike formula which is cow's milk and tailored to a calf.
3. It contains long chain fatty acids essential for human brain growth, not included in most formulas.
4. It contains antibodies to disease and white blood cells for the immune system, not present in formula.
5. It fulfils a baby's biological need to breast feed from it's mother and helps to safeguard the baby's emotional health throughout life.
6. Breast feeding mums don't get as much breast cancer as mums who have never breast fed.
Breast Milk Kills Cancer!
One of the reasons we now have 1 in 3 people affected by cancer is that we are seeing a whole generation of people who were brought up on formula milk.
A few years ago immunology student, Anders Hakansson1, of Lund University, Sweden, was experimenting by mixing human milk, cancer cells and bacteria. To his surprise the cancer cells were "acting up". Their volume was decreasing and their nuclei shrinking. Hakansson's supervisor, Catharina Svanborg, quickly recognized that the cancer cells were committing suicide. The phenomenon of apoptosis, whereby the body rids itself of old and unnecessary cells was well known, however for this to occur with cancer cells was unknown as their usual pattern is to reproduce in an uncontrolled fashion. Something in the breastmilk caused the cancer cells to self-destruct. Svanborg and her team had already done extensive investigation in the ability of breastmilk to protect the gut lining from invasive bacteria such as pneumococcus that causes the increased rates of upper respiratory tract infections and otitis media in children not breastfed. And so they began to track down the cancer-killing component in breastmilk. Then in 1995 they reported2 that the protein alpha-lactalbumin, or alpha-lac for short, was capable of targeting not only cancer cells but also other immature and rapidly growing cells, leaving stable, mature cells for growth and development. Alpha-lac's amazing capabilities may explain in part why formula fed infants suffer from increased rates of infectious diseases as well as childhood cancers.
References:
1. Discover Magazine, June 30, 1999
2. Hakahsson, A. et al. Apoptosis induced by a human milk protein. Proc Natl Acad Sci. 92:8064-8068, 1995
Breast Milk Kills Polio Says Inventor Of Polio Vaccine!
Did you know that Albert Sabin, inventor of the oral polio vaccine, did the first study on the anti-polio properties of breast milk? He infected mice with polio and then took breast milk from 71 American women and fed it to the mice. The breast milk had an 84% success rate at neutralising polio. (Albert Sabin and Howard Fieldsteel, 'Anti-poliomyelitic Activity of Human and Bovine Colostrum and Milk', Journal of Pediatrics, 29 (1962).
Breast Milk Protects Against HIB and Meningitis
According to the journal of epidemiology, breast milk protects against HIB for up to 10 years after you have stopped breast feeding.
'For each week of breast feeding, the protection improved.' (Journal of Epidemiology, 1997, 26: 443-450).
Breast Milk Protects Against Whooping Cough, Strep B, HIB and Meningitis!
Tropical Pediatrics also found significant amounts of antibodies in breast milk to whooping cough, HIB, strep B infection and meningitis.
'Samples may indicate a protective role for breast milk against the four infections of early childhood.' Tropical Pediatrics, 1989, 4: 226-232.
Breast Milk Can Protect Against Complications From Measles
Fatality from measles in third world children was REDUCED BY ONE THIRD in breast fed children, according to:
17. Lepage P. Munyakazi C, Hennart P. Breast feeding and hospital mortality in children from Rwanda. Lancet 1981;i:40911.
Breast Milk Protects Against Rotavirus/Diarrheoa
In a study in Brazil, dehydrating diarrhoea (defined by the presence of a persistent skinfold plus at least two other signs of dehydration) was 6.0 times more frequent among non-breastfed infants than among exclusively breastfed infants. If a child already had diarrhoea, the risk of developing dehydration was 3.3 times greater for the nonbreastfed infant.
Fuchs SC. Risk factors for dehydrating diarrhea: a case-control study. Ph.D. thesis, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil, 1993.
Victora CG, Fuchs SC, Kirkwood BR, Lombardi C, Barros FC. Breastfeeding, nutritional status and other prognostic factors for dehydration among young children with diarrhoea: a casecontrol study. Bull WHO 1992;70:467-75.
Breast Milk Protects Against Cholera
Epidemiologic studies show that breastfeeding protects against shigellosis and cholera. Breastmilk also contains antibodies against a large number of other gastrointestinal pathogens. It also protects against neonatal necrotizing enterocolitis.
Hanson LA, Ashraf R. Carlsson B. Mattsby-Baltzer I, Motas C, Hahn-Zoric M, Mata L, Herias V, Cruz JR, Lindblad BS, Karlberg J, Jalil F. The Second John Soothill Lecture: breastfeeding, infections and immunology. In: Chandra RK, ed. Nutrition and immunology. St. John's, Canada: ARTS Biomedical Publishers and Distributors, 1992:45-60.
Lucal A, Cole TJ. Breast milk and neonatal necrotizing enterocolitis. Lancet 1990;336:1519-23
Breast Milk Can Protect Against Pneumonia
In Rwanda non-breastfed children were twice as likely as breastfed children to die of pneumonia.
Lepage P. Munyakazi C, Hennart P. Breast feeding and hospital mortality in children from Rwanda. Lancet 1981;i:40911.
Breast Milk Reduces Cot Death By 50%!
The German Study of Sudden Infant Death is a case-control study of 333 infants who died of sudden infant death syndrome and 998 age-matched controls.
RESULTS. A total of 49.6% of cases and 82.9% of controls were breastfed at 2 weeks of age. Exclusive breastfeeding at 1 month of age halved the risk, partial breastfeeding at the age of 1 month also reduced the risk of sudden infant death syndrome, but after adjustment this risk was not significant. Being exclusively breastfed in the last month of life/before the interview reduced the risk, as did being partially breastfed. Breastfeeding survival curves showed that both partial breastfeeding and exclusive breastfeeding were associated with a reduced risk of sudden infant death syndrome.
CONCLUSIONS. This study shows that breastfeeding reduced the risk of sudden infant death syndrome by ~50% at all ages throughout infancy.
Source: PEDIATRICS Vol. 123 No. 3 March 2009, pp. e406-e410.
