Breastfeeding And Your Baby's Immune System
When a baby is born and exposed to nature's elements, it is at its most vulnerable stage of life. External medication and protection cannot help babies to survive for long, they need immediate and complete internal protection against diseases.
Mother's Immunity: When the baby spends it time in the womb, it has no reason to worry. The mother's own immunity protects the fetus at all stages of pregnancy. As soon as the babies are born, they need to 'face the music' on their own. Even though nature and evolution equip the babies with some kind of tools, they're still at high risk. Their long term survival and health depend on too many factors and cannot be left to chance. As always, evolution has found the perfect answer to this problem.
Newborns are able to absorb immunity giving antibodies from mother's milk directly. Under any other circumstances, the human body is incapable of absorbing antibodies (they have to be produced internally, not absorbed) but newborns can do it!
Since the mother and baby are exposed to the same air borne dangers (they live in the same place, don't they) but the mother can produce antibodies while the baby can't. So, the mother's body produces excess amounts of antibodies and passes it on to the baby via the milk. Only a few mammals can do this kind of antibody transfer to their babies.
Immunity Development: The mother's milk cannot sustain its protective antibody umbrella over the baby, beyond a certain period of time. The baby has to develop its own immunity. This is a gradual process for the baby and it can many years for the baby to have a full fledged immunity system of its own.
Breastfeeding milk aids this development process. It contains different kinds of Oligosaccharides that from the building blocks of the baby's immunity system. These chemicals have specific functions against warding off specific diseases or bacteria or viruses. The baby gets a head start with its immunity system when compared to those who did not have breastfed milk.
Left on its own, the baby's body needs to be exposed to the bacteria, virus or disease causing germs, for it to start producing the exact antibodies to combat it. This means the baby has to face many periods of illnesses and fever, before it becomes internally strong to withstand the diseases. Breastfeeding saves the babies from these prolonged bouts of illnesses because the milk already has all the oligosaccharides for 99% of the disease causing germs the baby is likely to encounter.
Long Term Immunity and Genetic Resistance: There are some ailments that even fully working immune systems find difficult to ward off. And some people also have specific genetic disease that their bloodline is vulnerable to. Breastfed milk contains the exact oligosaccharides that help in developing a line of resistance for these major diseases, in the baby's immune system. Of course, we do have vaccines to help newborns nowadays but the mother's milk gives the babies with natural protection, which is what babies relied on before the invention of vaccines.
What to do if you are not producing enough breast milk
One of the biggest issues breastfeeding mothers face is not producing enough breast milk, this happens to a lot of women and it can be frustrating especially when your newborn demands more milk.
One of the first things you think of is replacing your breast milk with a formula. Formulas do not offer the same benefits and often can cause more harm than good causing your baby to spit up frequently and often suffering from colic, there are certain foods that can help increase breast milk and there are also specially formulated breast milk supplements that have everything you need to stimulate the production of more breast milk.
Conclusion
When it comes to your babies health a strong immune system is the best thing you can provide them and a mothers breast milk is the best thing you can do to ensure he or she grows up to be strong and healthy.
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