NOTHING beats breast milk. Some even call it “liquid gold.” According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), “The breast-feeding infant is the reference or normative model against which all alternative methods must be measured.” The organization’s experts state unequivocally that breast milk is uniquely superior for infant feeding and is species-specific.
The primary benefit of mother’s milk is nutritional. It contains at least 100 ingredients not found in formula. It is sterile, and almost no babies are allergic to it. Human milk contains just the right amount of fatty acids, lactose, water, vitamins, minerals and amino acids for easy digestion, brain development and growth of human babies.
Milk from Mama transfers her antibodies to the baby. Approximately 80% of the cells in breast milk are macrophages, cells that kill bacteria, fungi and viruses. Nursing promotes good jaw development and the growth of straight, healthy teeth.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), breast-fed infants have fewer hospital admissions, ear infections, digestive problems, allergies and rashes than formula-fed babies. Breast-feeding also confers protection against a host of more serious diseases including pneumonia, bronchitis, staphylococcus infection, bacterial meningitis, hepatitis, insulin-dependent diabetes and ulcerative colitis.
THE few conditions that preclude breast-feeding include active, untreated tuberculosis, herpes infection, hepatitis, beta streptococcus infection, drug addiction and, in the opinion of many doctors, HIV/ AIDS infection. Some sources, however, state that human milk does not transfer HIV. In fact, a November 2004 UNICEF report supports exclusive breast-feeding (EBF) in HIV-epidemic countries. In addition to its high nutritional value, breast milk does not expose infants to the parasitic organisms that can cause life-threatening diarrhea.
“In this environment, EBF is a life-saving choice for children. Every day we delay implementing programs to support EBF, more than 3,500 children die needlessly, and HIV is allowed to spread silently among the most vulnerable,” says Miriam Labbock, Chief of Nutrition and Maternal/Infant Health Division at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.
WHAT’S good for the little ones is also good for their mothers, in several different ways. Breast-feeding is much more economical than buying bottles and formula, and easier than sterilizing bottles and heating formula every two hours. By burning extra calories, it helps a woman lose the weight she gained eating for two.
AAP data show that mothers who breast-feed experience less postpartum bleeding, and higher oxytocin levels cause the uterus to return to normal, pre-pregnancy size more quickly. On the emotional and psychological levels, nursing can be an ineffably beautiful bonding experience that offsets some of the other difficulties and demands of motherhood.
WENDI Patrick, a resident of Ciudad Colón, southwest of San José, said she was not at all sure about breast-feeding before her son was born, even though she knew about its nutritional and immunological benefits. She decided to give it a try for six months. After six months had passed, she decided to continue for at least year.
Now that her son is almost a year old, she says, “I’m thinking that as long as he and I both want to do it, I will continue. The closeness we have is something I never could have imagined before he was born. And breast-feeding is not just a means of getting nutrition into him. He wants to nurse when he’s not feeling well, or gets a bump, or he’s tired, and that’s fine by me. In fact, the best time of day is when we’re both tired and I nurse him to sleep, and fall asleep myself in the process.”
THE benefits of breast-feeding continue throughout a woman’s life. According to the AAP, women who have nursed have a higher rate of bone remineralization than mothers who haven’t. This leads to fewer post-menopausal hip fractures and lowers the rate of ovarian cancer and postmenopausal breast cancer. AAP data also show that diabetic women who have nursed need less insulin, and that breast-feeding women have more high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol – the good kind – and, possibly, lower risk of coronary disease.
If breast-feeding offers so many advantages to both mother and baby, why do so few women do it?
“Women need support, good information and resources,” says Nancy Sábean, pioneer of La Leche League in Costa Rica. Originally from Boston, Massachusetts, Sábean introduced the program to the country 25 years ago, and is still active in it.
Founded in 1956 in the United States, La Leche League was named after a Spanish settlers’ shrine to Nuestra Señora de La Leche y Buen Parto (Our Lady of Happy Delivery and Plentiful Milk), according to the organization’s Web site, www.lalecheleague.org. The international organization gives information and encouragement, mainly through personal help and publications, to mothers who want to breast-feed their babies.
La Leche League International maintains the largest database in the world on breast-feeding and related topics. The organization is active in 65 countries and territories, and reaches more than 200,000 mothers monthly through its network of more than 6,700 certified, volunteer group leaders.
“La Leche League leaders do not teach classes,” Sábean explains. “We merely facilitate a woman’s ability to do what she already knows how to do.”
COSTA Rica’s Public Law 7430 promotes breast-feeding and delineates the rights of working and lactating women; in Costa Rica, women are entitled by law to 16 weeks of paid maternity leave and one hour per day for breast-feeding or expressing milk until the baby is one year old.
Breast pumps are available through La Leche League and at many pharmacies, and range in price from ¢3,000-6,000 ($6-13) for a manual pump to ¢16,700-23,000 ($35-49) for an electric one.
Five certified La Leche League group leaders are currently active in the country: Greta McAlpin (592-0726), Mariamelia Montero (271-1686), Maria Weinrich (761-1858), Waleska Porras (441-0148) and Nancy Sábean (228-0941).
.
