Breast Feeding Shows Additional
Benefits for Mother and Baby
An article from the May 14, 2001 issue of WebMD showed unexpected
additional benefits of breast-feeding to both mother and child. The
unique benefits had nothing to do with the known nutritional benefits
already reported for breastfeeding. The basis for these claims were two
separate studies done on breastfeeding. One study showed that
breastfed babies were more tolerant of pain. The second study showed
that the bones of teenage mothers who breastfed had a higher bone mineral
density than teen moms who hadn't breastfed.
The first of the two studies was conducted at Montreal Children's
Hospital in Quebec, where researchers recruited 74 breastfeeding mothers
of 2-month-olds. In this study the babies were observed to see if
breastfeeding had any effect on the child's ability to handle pain.
The results of this study showed that no matter what type of observation
analysis was used, there was a reported 50% reduction in pain response in
the children that were breastfed. The theory for explaining these results
is that the sucking, the transmission of the milk, and being in contact
with the mother, help to activate systems in the baby's body responsible
for reducing pain.
The second study demonstrates a way teen mothers may benefit from
breastfeeding. Prior to this study it was commonly believed that
women during breastfeeding lose bone mineral density and teen moms tend to
lose more. Adult mothers typically regain the bone loss after weaning
their babies from breastfeeding. However, there was a concern about
whether the bones of teenage mothers -- who are still growing and
developing -- could recover from the nutritional rigors of breastfeeding.
The results were surprising to researchers. What the researchers
found was that the bones of teenage mothers who breastfed actually had
higher bone mineral density than teen moms who hadn't breastfed even after
they took into account factors such as weight, race, diet, and exercise.
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