August is Breastfeeding Awareness month

Mother Nature created the best “formula” you could ever give your baby: 100% breast milk. Yes, breast is best. It’s custom-made especially for your little one.

The American Academy of Pediatricians and the U.S. Surgeon General recommend that women breastfeed for at least a year. The World Health Organization and UNICEF recommend a minimum of two years.

Breastfed babies are less likely to have these health problems:
Allergies
Asthma
Respiratory infections
Ear infections
Gastro-intestinal problems
SIDS
Childhood Leukemia
Obesity
Type 1 & type 2 diabetes
Need braces

It’s a brain booster!
Breastfed babies are shown to have a slightly higher IQ than their formula fed counterparts.

It’s free!
Formula costs two to three thousand dollars a year. When a mom chooses to breastfeed, there’s no worrying about wasting open cans of formula. You can breastfeed when ever you want. Also, consider the health care savings.
Overall, we spend 3.6 billion dollars a year to treat conditions and diseases that breastfeeding could prevent.
The Surgeon General estimates if we could double the amount of moms who breastfeed for the first six months of life, we could save more than three billion dollars in health care costs every year!

Healthy dose of antibodies!
Infant formula cannot match the exact chemical makeup of human milk, especially the cells, hormones, and anti-bodies that fight disease.
Breastfed babies, in general, have fewer colds and ear infections.
For most babies, breast milk is easier to digest than formula. It takes time for their stomachs to adjust to digesting proteins in formula because they are made from cow’s milk.

It’s a fat fighter!
Some studies suggest the longer an infant breastfeeds, the less likely he or she will be overweight. Breast milk has shown a link to lower cholesterol and lower blood levels later in life too.

Benefits for mom too!
Reduces mom’s rate of breast cancer and ovarian cancer.
Moms are less-likely to suffer from postpartum depression.
Nursing promotes quicker postpartum recovery. After 9 months of expanding, breastfeeding will help your uterus shrink back to normal quicker. It helps you burn more than 500 extra calories a day. It postpones the return of your menstrual cycle. Most nursing moms don’t see their periods return until their babies start solids, or they are weaned, while other sometimes o several months after that!

For more info:
Human Milk Banks
If you can’t breastfeed and still want to give your baby human milk, the best place to go is to a milk bank that can dispense donor human milk to you if you have a prescription from your doctor. Many steps are taken to ensure the milk is safe. The closest location to the Tri-State is Mother's Milk Bank of Ohio- that's in Columbus.
To find out more, you can visit the website for the Human Milk Banking Association of North America.

International Lactation Consultant Association
Phone number: (919) 861-5577

La Leche League International
Phone number: (800) 525-3243
Breastfeeding and the Law

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