What's In It for Mother?

The Breastfeeding Book: Everything You Need to Know About Nursing Your Child
by Martha Sears, R. N., William Sears, M. D.

(Page 7 of 9)

By providing milk from your breasts, you're guaranteeing the best nourishment for your baby. But breastfeeding is healthier not just for babies. It's healthier for mothers, too. During breastfeeding, you give your baby ideal nourishment and nurturing, and as “payback” your baby, in effect, gives something back to you. You tap into a formula for mothering and nurturing your baby that is tested and true - as old as time itself. Breastfeeding will make it easier to care for your baby, and it will make it easier for you to know and understand your baby. It will affect the way you listen to your child, the way you communicate, and the way you respond for many years to come. This will make disciplining your child easier as she grows, and it will help you feel good about parenting.

Breastfeeding is, after all, more than a way of delivering food. When you breastfeed, you continue the oneness that you and your baby experienced during pregnancy. Your body continues to provide nourishment, a warm touch, comfort, and safety, just as it did when baby was inside you. This relationship is unique, a different journey for each mother and baby.

Faster Postpartum Recovery

Breastfeeding helps your body recover from pregnancy more quickly. The baby's sucking stimulates the release of the hormone oxytocin, which causes your uterus to contract and return more quickly to its prepregnant size. This hormone is a natural version of the synthetic one (pitocin) that obstetricians often give women immediately after birth to help contract the uterus and expel the placenta.

Faster Weight Loss

When compared with formula-feeding moms, breastfeeding mothers have an easier time losing weight postpartum. Making milk uses up fat stores from pregnancy. In one study, breastfeeding moms showed more fat loss and larger reductions in hip circumference by one month postpartum than nonbreastfeeding moms. In another study, breastfeeding women tended to lose more weight from three to six months postpartum than formula-feeding mothers did, even though the breastfeeding moms were consuming more calories.

Hormonal Health

Lactation is a natural part of a woman's reproductive cycle, along with ovulation, menstruation, pregnancy, and childbirth. Good things happen throughout your body when baby sucks at your breast. The hormones released by sucking (prolactin and oxytocin) influence the overall balance of many of your other hormones and keep estrogen levels low, which may affect the development of certain cancers. Mothers report that breastfeeding is a pleasant, sensual experience. They enjoy the closeness, the skin contact with the baby, and pleasurable feelings from the nipple stimulation. These good feelings may originate in part with the hormone oxytocin, which is released during breastfeeding to stimulate the milk-ejection reflex. Oxytocin is released also during childbirth and during sexual intercourse. It acts like a bonding hormone; the good feelings it creates during important interpersonal acts like breastfeeding and sex help to build the strong human relationships that nurture babies and keep families together.

Relaxation

Not only does breastfeeding benefit mother's body, it helps mother's mind, too. The same hormones that help make milk help a mother feel peaceful. When mothers sit down to breastfeed, they may find themselves drifting off to sleep. If they've been feeling stressed or harried, breastfeeding brings a sense of contentment and relaxation. This may be prolactin at work, since prolactin is known to be one of the body's stress-fighting hormones, and research has shown that breastfeeding mothers are more tolerant of stress. There is also a sleep-inducing protein in breast milk that may help baby into dreamland. When you watch a breastfeeding pair, you will notice how as the feeding progresses, mother mellows and baby drifts peacefully to sleep, as if both have been given a natural tranquilizer - which is in fact what happens. Martha found the relaxing effect of breastfeeding especially helpful when she was having a tense day. She would enjoy breastfeeding the baby because of how it helped her calm down. Breastfeeding is a particularly relaxing perk for mothers who work outside the home. One mother in our pediatrics practice told us, “When I come home after a busy day at work, breastfeeding my baby helps me unwind better than a cocktail would.”

Reduced Risk of Breast, Uterine, and Ovarian Cancers

Breastfeeding reduces the risk of breast cancer, especially premenopausal breast cancer, by as much as 25 percent, depending on how much time the woman spends breastfeeding during her lifetime. Breastfeeding is also associated with a lowered risk of uterine and ovarian cancers. The cancer-lowering effects of breastfeeding are thought to be due to the lower estrogen levels that occur during lactation. The less estrogen available to promote the growth of the cells lining the breasts, uterus, and ovaries, the less risk there is of these tissues becoming cancerous.

Less Osteoporosis

Women who have breastfed are less likely to suffer hip fractures in the postmenopausal years. Women who have not breastfed have a four-times greater chance of developing osteoporosis than women who have breastfed do.

Natural Child Spacing

The same hormones that make milk suppress ovulation and menstruation, providing you feed by the rules. For a discussion of breastfeeding and fertility, see chapter 3.

Easier Discipline

Breastfeeding is an exercise in baby reading. One veteran disciplinarian told us, “I can tell my baby's moods by the way she behaves at the breast.” Discipline 101 begins with becoming an expert on your baby, knowing how to read her cues and respond appropriately, and this is where breastfeeding shines. You learn not only to understand your baby's signals when you breastfeed but also to trust them. A prominent psychotherapist once revealed this observation to us: “Breastfeeding mothers are better able to empathize with their children.” The ability to get behind the eyes of your children and see things from their viewpoint is one of the keys to shaping their behavior appropriately. More than milk flows into the baby when you breastfeed. An infant who is on the receiving end of nature's best nurturing learns to trust his caregivers, which is the basis of learning to respect authority. The breastfeeding pair develops a mutual sensitivity that helps the mother convey to the child the behavior she expects and helps the child behave accordingly. With breastfeeding you enjoy the conccept of mutual giving: mother gives the best start to baby; baby gives the best start to mother.

Reduced Cost

Add up the approximately $1,200 a year it costs to buy formula, the expense of buying and cleaning bottles, nipples, and tote bags, and the medical costs for more frequent doctor's visits for formula-fed infants, and you'll see that breastfeeding is a nutritional bargain. It does cost slightly more to feed a breastfeeding mother than a woman who is not lactating, but these food costs are negligible compared with the price tag on formula feeding. Doctors estimate that an increase in frequency and duration of breastfeeding could save $29 billion a year in medical costs in the United States.

© 2000 by Martha Sears, R.N., and William Sears, M.D.

About the Author

Martha Sears is a registered nurse, childbirth educator, and breastfeeding consultant.

William Sears, M.D., received his pediatric training at Harvard Medical School's Children's Hospital and Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children. He has practiced as a pediatrician for more than thirty years.