Give your child the best.
Although most parents know that breast feeding is the best choice, but the perceived inconvenience, previous attempts failure and lack of knowledge on the actual advantages that breastmilk have caused many newborns to be denied benefiting from breastfeeding.

In the beginning, it may be frustrating and may take some effort to get it started
right, but once the perserverance has passed the test, you are on your way to make a big difference in you and your baby’s life.

Breastfeeding creates a special bond between you and your baby. Every mother’s milk has a unique smell to a baby. This enhances bonding between the mother and baby. In fact this is a great help to promote behavioural development of the baby.

Bottle feeding is merely providing food and even then, not necessarily the best food.All the right kinds of fat in breastmilk comes in higher quantity but is more easily absorbable than formula milk. These include Omega fatty acids, such as DHA and AHA, which enhance your baby’s brain and vision development when they needed most.

Breastmilk contains more carbohydrates compared to formula milk to meet your baby’s needs.Breastmilk contains less protein than formula milk, but this protein is of a form that is more digestible for the sensitive stomach. All the protein from breastmilk can be absorbed by your baby, unlike formula milk.

The proportion of the nutrients, vitamins and minerals in breastmilk changes with the needs of your growing baby up to 6 months of age. Formula milk proportion stays the same and are often less easily absorbable.The amount of water in breast milk is just right to satisfy your baby’s thirst,thus, when you breastfeed your baby, you do not need to give water at all. The proportion of water in formula milk is dependent on how much you put in.

There are more than a hundred ingredients in breastmilk that cannot be created with human hands or brain. These are important for your baby’s complete development. The anitbodies in breastmilk help your baby fight against infection. These are absent in formula milk. Bottle fed babies are more likely to suffer from diarrhea, ear, lung and urine infections, increases anxiety and visits to the clinic.

The taste of breast milk varies according to the mother’s diet while formula milk taste the same all the time. Thus, breastfed babies are more ready to try new food during weaning then bottle fed babies.

In the long run, breastfed babies are less likely to develop obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes when they grow up.The best part is the mother gets to return back to her pre-pregnant weight more quickly because more calories are burnt when producing breast milk. Breast feeding also protects the mother from breast cancer.

Angeline Foong Wai Leng is a mother of 2 boys. She grew up in a family of violence and financial difficulty. During her teenage years, she helped out in child care centre,where she learn several useful tactics in handling children of different ages. Angelinea’s passion is to help parents realize that understanding their child makes parenting frustration free…and more at allaboutyourchild.com

Here’s good news for breastfeeding moms. A study confirms that this healthy habit can reduce a woman’s risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis (RA) by as much as 50 percent. What’s more, the longer you breastfeed, the bigger the benefits.

This was revealed by Dr. Elizabeth Karlson of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston who studied 121,700 women to determine the effects of hormonal factors in RA. RA is the most debilitating form of arthritis that affects more women than men. The exact cause of this inflammatory condition is unknown but some researchers believe hormones may be involved in the disease.

Untreated, RA causes the body’s own immune system to attack the tissue that lines the joints, causing pain, stiffness, and deformities. While there’s no cure for RA, the right treatment can help patients live long, productive lives.

“Female sex hormones have long been thought to play a role in RA, which is diagnosed in women up to four times as often as in men. RA often develops when hormone levels are changing, such as in the first few months after giving birth and around the time of menopause,” according to Salynn Boylers of WebMD Medical News.

Karlson’s subjects were part of the ongoing Nurses’ Health Study, a sweeping investigation of disease, health, and lifestyle since 1976. Using questionnaires, the team noted the subjects’ reproductive history, paying close attention to potential RA risk factors like age at menarche, age at first birth, history of breastfeeding, use of oral contraceptives, and regularity of menstrual cycles.

They also studied estrogen use in older women after menopause. From this group, researchers singled out 674 RA patients most of whom were middle-aged when they got the disease. They later found that the risk of RA was lower in those who breastfed their babies. The longer breastfeeding was practiced, the lower the risk of RA. No benefits were seen in those who breastfed for less than a year.

“Looking at total lifetime breastfeeding, regardless of number of children, women who had breastfed for between 13 and 23 months had a 20 percent reduction in the risk of RA compared with women who did not breastfeed. Women who had breastfed for at least 24 months - two full years out of their childbearing years - increased their risk reduction to 50 percent,” said Carla Sharetto in Daily News Central.

“The breastfeeding finding was something of a surprise because some studies have suggested that it increases risk. We don’t understand the mechanism behind this completely, but it does appear that there are hormonal changes associated with breastfeeding that are long-lasting,” Karlson explained.

If you are the past the age where breastfeeding is possible and you already have RA, don’t fret. Many prescription drugs can help ease the pain of RA and reduce its crippling complications. Unfortunately, some of these expensive drugs have serious side effects that are worse than the disease itself. To be on the safe side, use Flexcerin, a non-prescription natural supplement that soothes aching joints, rebuilds and repairs damaged joints, and restores joint mobility and flexibility. Check out www.flexcerin.com for more information.

Janet Martin is an avid health and fitness enthusiast and published author. Many of her insightful articles can be found at the premiere online news magazine www.thearticleinsiders.com

A baby’s sleeping environment should be made safe. The SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) recommendation is to always ensure that your baby’s feet are at the bottom of the cot, with your baby tucked in tightly, so that your baby cannot move down under the blankets.

Babies like to be swaddled at night when they are young, but still remember to place your baby down the end of the cot or bassinet, this will provide your baby with a warm and safe sleeping environment.

As your baby gets older though, you will find that your baby becomes mobile and stronger, and is able to kick the sheets off, or move up and out of the sheeting you had so carefully prepared for them. The best way to avoid your baby losing their sheets during the night or getting caught up in their bed sheets is to dress your baby in a safe baby sleeping bag, ensuring that the baby sleeping bag has ventilation holes, and is a low fire danger hazard. Baby sleeping bags are a great invention, this way your baby will get a good night sleep staying warm in winter, and you will get a good night sleep knowing that your baby is safe and won’t be getting caught up under their sheets.

Reduce the risk of SIDS by ensuring that there are no blankets, pillows or cot bumpers in your baby’s cot or bassinet, checking that the cot or bassinet mattress fits into the frame securely, ensuring that your baby’s face and head are not covered, placing baby on their back to sleep, avoiding smoking near your infant, and placing your baby down the bottom of their cot or bassinet for their sleep.

Investing in a baby monitor will help relieve any angst you may suffer in worrying about your baby during the night. A good baby monitor is one that has a sensor pad to alarm you if there is no movement after a certain period of time, and one where you have a parent monitor so that you can hear the soft sound of your baby breathing through the reception.

Following these recommendations, not only will your baby get a good night sleep, but so will parents.

Visit www.ebabycentre.com for more information relating to baby care and development, what to expect postpartum, find baby products online, and monitor your baby’s growth with the easy to use infant percentiles calculator.