Breast is best
Breast is bestArgumentative
Breast is Best
If one chooses to have a child, shouldn�t he or she be obligated to do what is best for that child? There are many important choices to make for that child, and some may be more difficult than others. Hospital or home birth? Pampers or Huggies? Crib or family bed? But when it comes to feeding, the choice is clear. Breast-feeding is the best choice that mothers can make for themselves and their child.
Not everyone agrees that breast-feeding is the best choice. Some argue that bottle feeding is democratic and gives other members of the family a chance to feed the baby. I agree that family members need a chance to experience the thrill of nourishing the new life, but giving the child a bottle of formula is not necessary. Mother�s can express breast milk and put it into a bottle when other family members want to feed the child.
Most new mothers are eager to get back to their pre-pregnancy weight. Some may choose to formula feed so that they can stop eating for two and maybe even diet, things which are impossible for a nursing mother. On the other hand, a women who is producing milk uses between 1,000 and 3,500 calories per day more than at other times in her life (Lim 63). With all of the extra calories burned, she may not need to diet at all to reach her desired weight (Eisenberg, Murkoff, and Hathaway 7).
A new mother may choose to bottle feed because she wants to monitor intake and make
sure that her child is getting enough. Breasts aren�t calibrated to measure baby�s intake and one might worry that their child is not getting full (Eisenberg, Murkoff, and Hathaway 6). This concern is unnecessary because the hind milk, the milk that a baby gets at the end of a nursing session, is higher in calories than that at the beginning, and tends to make a baby feel full (Eisenberg, Murkoff, and Hathaway 4).
Some women choose not to breast-feed because they have heard the common myth that breast-feeding causes jaundice, or excess bilirubin in the skin that causes a baby to look yellow (Lim 70). This belief is unfounded. Breast-feeding is actually the best thing that you could do for a jaundice baby because colostrum, the rich fluid that comes in before your milk, actually acts as a laxative to help the baby pass meconium, a baby�s first bowel movement, which is high in bilirubin (Lim 70).
There are many reasons to breast-feed, but the most important reasons have to do with the health of you and your child. Did you know that breast-feeding is possibly linked to reducing the risk of breast cancer that occurs before menopause (Eisenberg, Murkoff, and Hathaway 5) ? Nursing also helps a women recover after child birth. It is part of a natural cycle and will help your uterus go back to pre-pregnancy size.
Besides helping...
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