In my last article (Mother’s Milk: The Miracle Nutrition, Dec. 22), I wrote about some of mother’s milk effects on the physiological and neurological developments of newborns. Today, I am going to explain the psychological and emotional benefits of breast-feeding on both mother and child.
The emotional bonding between mother and child achieved through the act of breast-feeding is of exceptional value to their relationship from the moment the infant is born onward. It is a multifaceted relationship; the body contact and warmth, the mere caress, the smell of mother’s skin, and the sound of her heartbeat give reassurance, serenity, and emotional and physical security necessary for the mental and emotional nourishment and stability of her baby, simulating the comfort and warmth of mother’s womb.
The secretion of certain hormones during breast-feeding increases the mother’s tenderness and fondness for her baby, strengthening the bonding between mother and child and making the practice of nursing a rewarding experience for both. Studies suggest that babies who are breast-fed for longer periods have less risk of being abused by their mothers.
If anything, this demonstrates the intensity of a relationship built on strong emotional and physical ties; such intimacy is bolstered with longer periods of nursing, the longer the more benefits for both parties, resulting in more tenderness and less violence on the mother’s side.
Breast-feeding contributes positively to a mother’s mental and emotional health; it makes her feel more competent and needed, boosting her self-esteem.
Whereas, failing to do so may affect her psyche and confidence. Apart from reinforcing emotional and physical relationships, nursing offers babies the priceless benefits of breast milk protection and optimal nourishment for both body and brain.
Breast-fed children have records of good psychological and emotional developments with fewer learning and behavioral disabilities and more efficiently functioning nervous systems, making them healthier and smarter.
In fact, a Danish study reported that grown-ups who were breast-fed for seven to nine months or more as infants had better cognizant abilities and higher intelligence than their counterparts who were less breastfed; the longer the nursing period the higher the intelligence level is.
It is suspected that components of mother’s milk such as docasahexaenoic acid (DHA), a long chain of polyunsaturated acid not available in cow’s milk or formula, may be responsible for protecting the central nervous system and prompting its development.
This makes breast milk the ideal food for the optimal growth and neurological development of newborns. Another benefit linked to breast-fed babies points to the evidence that these babies run a lower risk of becoming obese children than formula-fed ones, because, according to researchers, “formula feeding takes control away from babies and disrupts their “innate ability” to regulate their food intake.”
For breast milk to become the optimum nutrition for infants, mothers’ diet and lifestyle should be wholesome and healthy.
The diet should be rich in organic vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, healthy unsaturated fats, and protein (especially fish).
Nuts, seeds, and legumes enrich the quality of mother’s milk, whereas water, juices, and herbal teas increase its flow. What the mother eats and drinks makes her milk unique in composition.
Rest and sleep are equally important to the production of breast milk; catnapping in between feeds helps recover some of the lost sleep.
Mother’s calmness, peacefulness, attentiveness to her baby during the feed improves the quality and flow of her milk. Breast-feeding is a unique intimate relationship between mother and child. For such reasons, programs to educate mothers-and-fathers-to-be about the nutritional and emotional benefits of nursing should be supported, because no behavior is as essential to the healthy development of our infants and children.
Serious efforts and attempts by governments, hospitals, societies, families, and individuals should be enforced to make sure that newborns are universally breast-fed and emotionally cared for.
Breast milk, readily available, dynamic, highly nutritious, immunologically and hygienically packed, and environmentally safe is by far the optimal food produced by nature to safeguard the development of babies against famine, malnutrition, neglect, and ignorance.
Unless we rally support from governments, policy-makers, medical profession, and hospitals to promote and endorse breast-feeding, we would expect to have more formulafed babies who would miss on the nutritional value of breast milk, either through mother’s ignorance or the aggressive advertising promotions and marketing of the artificial food industry who have financial interests at stake. We should encourage dedicated efforts that promote breastfeeding to counteract the hard-driven formula propaganda.
By universally cooperating to reinstate breast-feeding as the main nutritional method for feeding babies, mothers would feel supported and heartened in order to fulfill their God’s given right of nursing to safeguard the physical, mental, and emotional health of their infants.
Hospitals with the help of the medical profession are the ideal facilities where breast-feeding can be promoted and mothers informed about the miracle nutrition they produce.
In order to be effective and successful, both hospitals and doctors’ clinics should stop accepting financial support, grants for research, and donations of baby formula supplies from the baby food industry.
These promotional gifts undermine mother’s efforts to breast-feed by leading them to believe that formula milk is superior to their own, especially when they are offered by health institutions. With such enforcement we should deter the prevalence of formula and return to the healthiest and most natural nourishment: mother’s milk.
— Mariam Alireza is a holistic science specialist. Send comments to [email protected].
