About breastmilk

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Breatsmilk really is a wonder. Ready-to-go and a meal in one, it's a great start to give your baby.

• Breastfeeding can protect against infection and some chronic diseases, and is linked with improved development in early years.
• Breastfeeding makes bonding between you and your baby easier.
• Breastfeeding provides many practical benefits for mothers as well as babies.
• Most mothers can breastfeed if they have correct information, support and nurturing.
• Breastmilk is free and comes at no environmental cost!

Here’s why experts say that breastmilk is the perfect food for your baby:

• Breastmilk has developed over millions of years to be exactly suited to your baby's needs.
  
• When your baby receives nothing but breastmilk (called exclusive breastfeeding) until six months of age, he receives all kinds of nutritional benefits. Breastmilk is easy to digest and provides all the nutrients that your baby needs in a form that is readily absorbed into his system. Colostrum, the potent milk that your breasts produce just after your baby is born, and mature breastmilk both contain antibodies and other agents that protect your baby from infection and disease.
  
• Breastmilk contains all the nutrients human infants need to grow and develop normally. Breastmilk is uniquely suited to the needs of infants from birth to six months. While formula manufacturers do try to copy breastmilk as closely as they can, breastmilk is a living tissue with illness-protective features, fatty acids that optimise brain development, and other benefits, and cannot be duplicated. In the end, it's an individual choice. If you decide not to breastfeed rest assured that - because we now know more about breastmilk than ever before - formulas are better designed than in the past.
  
• Breastmilk adapts to your baby's changing needs. It changes during a feed; the first milk is thirst-quenching, while the last milk is rich and creamy, full of essential fatty acids and lipids. It also changes throughout lactation and as your baby has fewer feeds.
  
• The taste of breastmilk changes with whatever you have eaten, which means that a breastfed baby is likely to be accepting of new tastes when he starts to eat solids.
  
• The skin-to-skin contact during breastfeeds provides physical connection with your child. It also provides security and comfort for babies and toddlers.
  
• Breastmilk is hygienic when it comes straight from the source, so it's quick and convenient. Of course, if you’re feeding your baby with expressed breastmilk, you still need to sterilise equipment.
  
• Breastmilk is convenient. No sterilising bottles, scrubbing teats, lugging bottles and sterile water around, mixing powder, keeping formula chilled, warming formula for feeds ... have baby and breast, will travel.
  
• Mothers, as well as babies, receive benefits from breastfeeding. This includes heightened protection against breast cancer, ovarian cancer and osteoporosis. And studies show that continuing breastfeeding for longer than seven months helps some women get back in shape after the birth.
  
• Last, but not least, breastfeeding is free.

How long to feed?

Researchers recommend that you breastfeed exclusively for six months; that is, you feed your baby nothing but breastmilk until he is six months old. Once you introduce solids, experts suggest it's best for your baby if you continue breastfeeding along with those solids until baby is 12 months old. After that, it's really up to you and your baby how long you continue: the World Health Organisation recommends breastfeeding until your child is two.

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