Lactation experts tend to spout “breast is best” propaganda to convince you to breastfeed before you leave the hospital. While breastfeeding does have a ton of great benefits for both baby and mom, it’s important to remember the way you choose to feed your baby is just that -- your choice. However, while you’re making that decision, one of the important things to weigh in your “pros” column is the massive help Baby’s immune system gets from milk a la mama. The evidence isn’t completely in yet, but there are some definite points in favor of breastfeeding when it comes to your newborn’s health and disease-fighting abilities.
Antibody Exchange
If you’re familiar with the newborn vaccine schedule, you know newborns get one at birth, but the rest won’t be given until around the two-month mark. In the meantime, babies are highly susceptible to all of the diseases adults and older kids have been vaccinated for (which is one of the reasons it is so important for the rest of your household to be up to date). Additionally, adults have much more effective immune systems, in part because they’ve been fighting off colds and flus for so many years. Newborn immune systems have absolutely no practice at eradicating pathogens.
Babies are born with some antibodies from mom’s immune system, but they will dissipate over the first six to twelve months. Access to breastmilk allows them to maintain and improve that antibody collection. This largely protects against diarrheal pathogens that tend to lead to dangerously dehydrated babies quite quickly, but the antibodies also provide some protection against other gastrointestinal illnesses and respiratory ailments.
Leukocyte Load Up
Breast milk also provides immune boosting leukocytes (or white blood cells), especially in the early days of antibody-rich colostrum. Some early studies of animal immunology even indicate the antimicrobial properties of leukocytes and the immune boosting benefits of lymphocytes (a type of leukocyte) are able to withstand passage through the infantile digestive system. This means they can be absorbed and processed into the body, then incorporated into the human immune response. Whether the same holds true for humans, of course, remains to be seen.
Complex Sugar Deception
In other studies, breast milk shows some serious ability to prevent some bacterial strains from growing on a molecular level. The immune response becomes highly active fending off invaders at a surprising level of intensity. In fact, greater quantities of some types of complex sugars are found in breast milk compared to cow’s milk or cow’s milk-based formula. These sugars have their own form of defense and appear to create a sort of blind for certain germs, so the microbes render their attack on a red herring.
The truth is, babies cannot get all the benefits of breast milk from formula. For some moms, however, breastfeeding simply isn’t an option -- some moms can’t do it at all, and some moms just don’t produce enough to keep up with baby’s supply and demand. If you prefer formula feeding, even a little supplementation with breast milk when possible can go a long way.
