Breasfeeding

Breastfeeding – From Mother to Infant

Breast feeding is a wonderful experience for both mother and child. It requires both mother and infant to be interactive in the success of the healthy infant. Successful feeding is one of the most complex tasks of a child’s infancy. It represents an intricate process between the newly born infant and its mother. It is not just about nutrition, but about creating a bond between the mother and infant.

The advantages of breast milk to a newborn include protection from infectious diseases and decreased rates of sudden infant death syndrome, diabetes, certain cancers, obesity, and asthma. Health benefits for the mother include a decreased risk of breast and ovarian cancer, earlier return to pre-pregnancy weight, and decreased risk for developing osteoporosis in postmenopausal age (Mills, 2009). Other health benefits of breast feeding mothers include bone density, in which pregnancy and breast feeding help increase bone mineral density. Also, repeated suckling of the infant releases oxytocin from the mother’s pituitary gland and signals for uterine contractions (Blincoe, 2005). Mothers may believe that because pregnancies are natural, that breast feeding will come easy to them and their infant. Others may think because they have attended classes on how to breast feed, they will be successful and not run into any problems while breast feeding. Many women are not prepared for the extreme fatigue that occurs with breast feeding, which include the wide variety of physical and psychological experiences that they transition through after the delivery of their infant (Johnson, Mulder, & Strube, 2007). According to Walker (2008), when the infant and mother are stable, the infant is placed skin-to-skin on the mother’s chest while being dried. Extended skin-to-skin contact helps keep the infant warm and allows for the infant to feed frequently. The infant’s first feedings happen within an hour or so of birth. Due to the early skin-to-skin...