Breastfeeding Benefits
Breastfeeding gives babies a healthy start in life. But it’s not just good for babies—it’s good for moms, too.
WIC is here to help you take advantage of all of these breastfeeding benefits. For example, you can get a peer counselor (another mom like you with breastfeeding experience) and an enhanced food package to help you breastfeed successfully. To learn more, call your local WIC clinic.
Health Benefits
Research suggests that breastfeeding lowers your baby's risk of certain infections and diseases, including these:
- Ear infections,
- Asthma,
- Lower respiratory infections,
- Diarrhea and vomiting,
- Childhood obesity,
- Eczema,
- Type 2 diabetes,
- Childhood leukemia, or
- Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).
For moms, breastfeeding can help you recover more quickly from childbirth. It can also reduce your risk for high blood pressure, certain breast and ovarian cancer and type 2 diabetes. Breastfeeding may also help you lose weight after childbirth.
Bonding with Baby
Physical contact is very important for your baby. It helps your baby feel safe, warm, secure, and loved. The skin-to-skin contact from breastfeeding also boosts your levels of oxytocin, a hormone that helps breast milk flow and helps you feel calm.
Nutrients
Breast milk is one of the best things that your baby needs to grow and develop. It even changes to meet your baby's needs as he or she gets older. Breast milk is rich in vitamins, minerals, and nutrients as well as other ingredients that help your baby grow healthy and strong.
Digestion
Babies can easily digest breast milk. And colostrum, the thick milk moms make during pregnancy and just after birth, helps your baby's digestive system grow.
Cost
Breast milk is free. Breastfed babies may also be sick less often, which may keep your health costs low.
Convenience
With breastfeeding, the milk is warm and ready to go whenever your baby is hungry. That means no bottles to heat up and no formula to measure and mix, which saves time.