Breastfeeding is the practice of a woman feeding an infant (or sometimes a toddler or a young child) with milk produced from her mammary glands, usually directly from the nipples. Babies have a sucking instinct allowing them to extract the milk.
Breastfeeding reduces risk of breast cancer in women with a family history of the disease – Women with a family history of breast cancer were 59 percent less likely to develop breast cancer themselves if they breastfed their children, revealed by US researchers.
Moms who breastfeed less likely to develop heart attacks or strokes and cardiovascular disease. – The longer women breastfeed, the lower their risk of heart attacks, strokes and cardiovascular disease, report University of Pittsburgh researchers in a study published in the May issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology.
A new study has corroborated the popular theory that breastfeeding significantly reduces a mother’s risk of breast cancer — in fact, researchers have found women who breastfeed for a year are five per cent less likely to have the disease. – Mothers who breastfeed their babies for a total of a year, are almost five per cent less likely to develop breast cancer than women who do not breastfeed at all, a scientist has advised.
Babies who are breastfeeding trigger a surge of a “trust” hormone oxytocin in their mothers’ brains, researchers have said. – When a baby suckles at a mother’s breast, it starts a chain of events that leads to surges of the “trust” hormone oxytocin being released in their mothers brains.
Long-term, exclusive breastfeeding appears to improve children?s cognitive development, according to a report in the May issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. – Long-term, exclusive breastfeeding appears to improve children’s cognitive development, revealed by researchers. It is already known that children and adults who were breastfed as infants have higher scores on IQ tests and other measures of cognitive (thinking, learning and memory) development than those who were fed formula.
First solid evidence that viral transmission through breast milk can be prevented by a drug Nevirapine HIV drug. – An antiretroviral drug already in widespread use in the developing world to prevent the transmission of HIV from infected mothers to their newborns during childbirth has also been found to substantially cut the risk of subsequent HIV transmission during breast-feeding.
