Host: If a mother came to you and was not sure what to do about feeding a child, what would you tell her the first time you saw her?
Susan Schulman:Well, we always try to encourage mothers to breast feed and there are several advantages to breast feeding, lots of advantages. The first one is it is nice and it's fun and it makes for wonderful mother infant bonding but also it's been shown repeatedly that breast milk is best for the baby, if its at all possible for the mother to breast feed, it's probably the best advantage to the baby. Breastfeeding is natural but is not always easy, so it's good to have some advice and expertise of your professional paediatrician, your nurse practitioner, your breastfeeding advisor to help you get started.
Your best thing to do is to show your breasts right before you deliver a baby, the month before to your obstetrician to see if you are going to have any difficulty. If you are you should be definitely sent to a lactation specialist so that they can help you prepare your nipples for the baby.
Now as far as why people like to breastfeed? Some babies are very colicky on formulas, they do better on breast milk, they tend to have less allergies on breast milk although that's not a 100%. They tend to be stronger and healthier because they get immunity from the breast milk, they have fewer ear infections, they have fewer stomach infections, gastroenteritis , they just generally have a better first year of life if they breastfeed. I try to get all my mothers to breastfeed and as a mater of fact in my practice there is about a 97% breastfeeding rate.
Host: Do breastfed babies have a tendency to have higher I.Q?
Susan Schulman: I don't know any of these studies and they have had a couple of studies that show that it might have an effect on the I.Q but I don't emphasize that. You can't always -- so there are many factors that affect the
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