Dr. Su Laurent: Well, I think everyone has probably heard, breast is best for a number of number reasons, firstly, because it is the natural milk made by mums for their babies and nothing can really surpass that. It's fantastically good for bonding.
Bottle fed babies are more likely to have colic for example. You're giving them something which is trying to be as close to breast milk as possible, but it comes from cows and cow's milk was made for cubs, and human milk is made for babies. So whether you try to get it as close as possible, it's still not exactly the same. There's nothing that can beat breastfeeding your baby in terms of the feeling that you get and how close you feel to your baby.
No Sterilization is required, no fiddling around with bottles, equipment. It's just there when you need it; it's on top all the time. No remembering to make up bottles before you go out because it's there. And there are very few reasons why mums shouldn't breastfeed, but there are a few. One of them is if they are on a drug, and there are very few drugs which you can't take when you're breastfeeding but they are certainly which are completely counter-indicated. And the other one is if sadly a mum is HIV+, she shouldn't breastfeed either. But apart from that we would strongly recommend giving it a go for all mums even those who feel they are not sure, give it a go because you may well be surprised.
If you can breastfeed your baby for the first six months, I think you've done very well and you've given your baby the maximum benefit. But many will carry on for a year and some of them carry on for two years and there's certainly no harm in doing that, and there will be some benefits as well. Beyond that, it's personal choice, some people carry on a long way and that's totally up to them.
Anything that you eat well in to some extent come out in your milk and certain mums will say quite clearly that when they have curry or they eat grapes, it makes baby poop a bit loose or it makes them a bit cranky, and I think you'll find out for yourself. I personally ate anything when I breastfeed. You may experiment a bit and find that there are certain things that sort of upset your baby. Unless you express, you are the only person who can feed your baby. And some mums who bottle feed will say that, in the middle of the night when they are very tired, they can just handover a bottle to their partners and they can get a break and there's truth to that, but if you want that, you can do that when you breastfeed, you can express and put it in the bottle.
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