Breast-feeding is giving a baby milk from the breast. After the birth of a child a mother's breast begins to produce milk,
a natural process designed to provide complete nourishment for a baby for several months after its birth.
Before milk is produced the mother's breast produces colostrum, a deep-yellow liquid containing high levels of protein and antibodies. A newborn baby who feeds on colostrum in the first few days of life is better able to resist the bacteria and viruses that cause illness. The mother's milk, which begins to flow a few days after childbirth when the mother's
hormones change, is a blue-white color with a very thin consistency. If the mother is well nourished, the milk provides the baby with the proper balance of nutrition.
The fat contained in human milk, compared with cow's milk, is more digestible for infants and allows greater absorption of fat-soluble vitamins into the bloodstream from the baby's intestine. Calcium and other important nutrients in human milk are also better utilized by infants. Antigens in cow's milk can cause allergic reactions in a newborn child, whereas such reactions to human milk are rare. Human milk also promotes growth, largely due to the presence of certain hormones and growth factors. Human milk banks have been established in several U.S. cities for the benefit of premature, ill, or allergic infants whose mothers are unable to breast-feed. Donor mothers are screened for certain diseases, and their excess milk is frozen for later use.
The health of children in developing countries has suffered where dry formulas mixed with polluted water have replaced uncontaminated, nutritionally superior mother's milk. Controversy has erupted over commercial efforts to convert women in these countries to formula feeding. Conversely, studies have found toxic substances in human milk, often in areas affected by pesticide spraying programs.
While
nursing, the mother may feel a tingling sensation as the milk glands, or lobules, produce milk and a slight tension when the milk is released from the glands to the nipple by the baby's sucking. The mother may feel some uterine contractions because the hormones that influence milk ejection also affect the uterus.
Many mothers attest to a special, intimate bond they have with their breast-fed infants. Although breast-feeding is a natural process, the actual techniques of breast-feeding are often not instinctive to new mothers. Some nursing mothers encounter difficulties with engorged breasts or chronically sore or leaking nipples. In some cases the nervous-hormonal reflex that ejects the milk can be blocked by anxiety and stress. Information on these problems and their solutions is available from physicians and organizations for nursing mothers, such as the La Leche League.