What’s Good for Baby Is Good for Mom

Did you know that breast-feeding is the healthiest choice for mothers as well as for babies? Nursing is a natural process that helps complete the cycle of pregnancy and birth. Here are a few of the positive effects on a mother’s health that come with nursing:

• Helps you recover faster. When a baby nurses within an hour of delivery, the suckling stimulates a hormone in the mother that contracts the uterus and reduces bleeding, allowing the uterus to return to its normal size more quickly.
• Helps you lose weight. Nursing takes energy—about 500 calories a day, to be exact. When breast-feeding, your body is working overtime and will return to its pre-pregnancy weight more rapidly and without reducing the amount you eat.
• Helps you feel better. Nursing releases hormones that stimulate a feeling of wellbeing in mothers.
  Costs less. Buying formula, bottles, and nipples adds up to thousands of dollars per year. As a new parent, you could think of better ways to spend that money.
• Lowers your cancer risk. Women who breast-feed have lower incidences of breast, uterine, and ovarian cancers. Lactation lowers estrogen levels in the body, and lifetime exposure to estrogen is a risk factor for these cancers. The longer you nurse, the more the benefit.
• Lowers your risk of osteoporosis. Breast-feeding increases bone density, reducing the risk of osteoporosis and fractures in older women who have breast-fed.

(W. Allan Walker, Eat, Play and Be Healthy)