Franciscan Health lactation consultant on breast milk

Amber Corban

For more than 50 years, mothers have heard the saying “breast is best” when it comes to feeding their infants.

What mothers should be hearing instead is “human milk is best, no matter how baby gets it.”

As the benefits of breastfeeding are highlighted during August, recognized annually as World Breastfeeding Month, it is important to note that breastfeeding can look different from one family to the next.

For one mom, breastfeeding may mean exclusively feeding baby at the breast. For another, it can mean pumping and bottle feeding expressed mother’s milk. Feeding at the breast and/or pumping with formula supplementation may be how breastfeeding looks for another mother. For mothers of premature or medically fragile babies, breastfeeding can mean pumping and providing mother’s milk or human donor milk through a feeding tube. And other moms may use a combination of feeding types.

Regardless of how an infant is fed, the benefits a baby receives from any amount of human milk will last a lifetime. Research has shown breastfeeding reduces instances of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Human milk also protects against respiratory and diarrheal disease; reduces ear infections, the likelihood of type 1 diabetes and the risk of childhood cancer; and protects against allergies. Infants may also sleep better, thanks to the melatonin in mother’s milk.

For mothers, breastfeeding lowers the risk of osteoporosis later in life; reduces risk of breast, uterine, endometrial and ovarian cancer; reduces insulin use for a diabetic mother; releases the hormone that helps the uterus shrink; and prevents postpartum hemorrhages.

While long-standing evidence is clear about the benefits of providing human milk to babies, more recent research offers more good news. We’re just learning how important breastfeeding can be for the rest of a child’s life, particularly for their gut health. Digestive issues such as leaky gut, which we are seeing increasingly in adults, can be diminished by establishing good gut flora as an infant through human milk.

We also know breastfeeding helps boost infant immunity, the importance of which became front and center during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found one in eight women suffer from post-partum depression. Being a mom is hard. We can all help ease any unnecessary guilt a mother may have about breastfeeding by simply understanding that each mother’s breastfeeding journey is going to look different and that is more than OK.

When it comes to breastfeeding, let’s be cheerleaders instead of a critics and encourage mothers to seek lactation support to help them reach their breastfeeding goals.

Franciscan Health’s Family Birth Centers provide lactation services that extend beyond the post-delivery hospital stay and many offer breastfeeding support groups. For more information, contact Franciscan Health Crown Point’s Family Birth Place Lactation department at 219-757-5739.

Instead of saying “breast is best,” let’s all work together to support moms and babies by emphasizing instead that human milk is best, no matter how baby gets it.

Amber Corban, RN, BSN, IBCLC-RC, is an internationally board-certified lactation consultant at Franciscan Health Crown Point. The opinions are the writer’s.

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