Summarize the major nutritional and health advantages of breastfeeding

What will be an ideal response?

In early infancy, breast milk is ideally suited to babies' needs, and bottled formulas try to imitate it. The major nutritional and health advantages of breast milk include:
– Provides the correct balance of fat and protein. Human milk is high in fat and low in protein. This balance, as well as the unique proteins and fats contained in human milk, is ideal for a rapidly myelinating nervous system.
– Ensures nutritional completeness. A mother who breastfeeds need not add other foods to her infant's diet until the baby is 6 months old. The iron contained in breast milk is easily absorbed by the baby's system.
– Helps ensure healthy physical growth. One-year-old breastfed babies are leaner (have a higher percentage of muscle to fat), a growth pattern that persists through the preschool years and that may help prevent later overweight and obesity.
– Protects against many diseases. Breastfeeding transfers antibodies and other infection-fighting agents from mother to baby and enhances functioning of the immune system. Compared with bottle-fed infants, breastfed babies have far fewer allergic reactions and respiratory and intestinal illnesses. Breast milk also has anti-inflammatory effects, which reduce the severity of illness symptoms. Breastfeeding in the first four months (especially when exclusive) is linked to lower blood cholesterol levels in childhood and, thereby, may help prevent cardiovascular disease.
– Protects against faulty jaw development and tooth decay. Sucking the mother's nipple instead of an artificial nipple helps avoid malocclusion and protects against tooth decay due to sweet liquid remaining in the mouths of infants who fall asleep while sucking on a bottle.
– Ensures digestibility. Because breastfed babies have a different kind of bacteria growing in their intestines than do bottle-fed infants, they rarely suffer from constipation or other gastrointestinal problems.
– Smooths the transition to solid foods. Breastfed infants accept new solid foods more easily than do bottle-fed infants, perhaps because of their greater experience with a variety of flavors, which pass from the maternal diet into the mother's milk.