Breast Feeding Good For Mom Too

The benefits of breastfeeding have been being extolled for some time now.  Everywhere you look doctors and other health care workers are touting the benefits breast milk offers infants.  Although even a few decades ago the benefits of breastfeeding were rarely discussed, today you would be hard pressed to find a health care professional recommending anything else, assuming it is possible for both mother and child.

Breastfeeding reduces an infant’s risk of developing allergies, it boosts baby’s immunity, lowers the risk of SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome), middle ear infections, colds, flues, dental problems, and even some childhood cancers.  As such, the World Health Organization recommends breastfeeding infants exclusively for at least six months before introducing solids and then continuing supplemental feeding until age two if possible. 

A recent study reveals however, that the baby isn’t the only one reaping the benefits of this intimate relationship.  Not only does nursing help women recover from labour more quickly, help prevent breast cancer later in life, and help to recover their pre-pregnancy shape with greater ease, but it is now said also to help prevent type II Diabetes.

A study published in the Diabetes Care journal has found that while the risk of Diabetes was similar between women who had had children and women who hadn’t, for women who had children a distinction was seen between those who had breastfed and those that had not. 
Women who had had children and had breastfed them in fact had a 14 percent lower risk of developing diabetes than those who had not.  Women who had breastfed for at least three months experienced this decrease risk in contrast to the women who had given birth but had bottle fed their infants.

Childless women seemed to enjoy the same protection as those that breastfed their infants.  Scientists suggest that breastfeeding thus decreases the risk that is incurred from having children.  So while having children may slightly increase the risk of developing type II diabetes later in life, breastfeeding can obviate this increased risk, making it the same as that of childless women.

The risks of developing diabetes increase as we age.  For women, the risk climbs after the age of forty-five.  Many risk factors such as age, race (black and Hispanics seem to have a higher risk than Caucasians), and family history cannot be helped, but other factors can such as controlling your weight can.  Breastfeeding your child, if possible, is likewise another factor that can help reduce your overall risk of developing this disease later in life.  So remember that nursing not only greatly enhances the health of your child, but can also protect mom as well.