What is the significance of exclusive breastfeeding for infants aged 0-6 months?
The first 1,000 days of life are internationally recognized as an important period for establishing a person's health in life. These 1,000 days include 280 days in the mother's body and 720 days when the baby grows to two years old. 0-6 months is an important stage in the early 1,000 days of life.
During the 280 days in the mother's body, the mother delivers nutrients to the fetus through the placenta and umbilical cord, and provides protection for the baby. After leaving the mother's body, the baby needs to adapt to the external environment independently. Babies aged 0-6 months grow rapidly and have high demands for nutrients, but their ability to digest and absorb food is poor, and their own immune systems are not yet perfect. Babies at this time face a huge contradiction between high nutritional needs and insufficient supply.
How to resolve this contradiction? Breastfeeding is the perfect solution.
Breast milk is the secretion of mammary glands that has evolved over hundreds of millions of years. Breast milk contains a lot of nutrients, which can meet the needs of rapid growth and development of infants from 0-6 months. Help the baby to establish a good intestinal microecology, and promote the maturity of the baby's digestive system and immune system. It can be seen that breast milk has many benefits for infants and is the best feeding for infants.
In addition, breastfeeding can reduce the risk of infectious diseases and allergic diseases in infants, prevent infants from developing diseases such as type 2 diabetes, obesity, hypertension and hyperlipidemia, and reduce the risk of breast cancer, ovarian cancer and type 2 diabetes in mothers. risk of disease.
Breastfeeding not only has many benefits for the physical and mental health of mothers and babies, but also improves the physical quality of the people and reduces the waste of medical data. Overall, breastfeeding has important implications for mother, baby and social development.
Guaranteed breastfeeding, what should mothers pay attention to?
After understanding the benefits of breastfeeding, new mothers may have such doubts, should I eat better during breastfeeding? In this way, the baby will grow white and fat after drinking my breast milk.
Specifically, in addition to following the eight guidelines for the general population, the diet of breastfeeding women should also do the following three:
- Increase the intake of high-quality protein (fish, poultry, eggs and lean meat) and vitamin A (animal liver, egg yolk) of animal foods and seafood (kelp, seaweed, sea fish, shellfish), and choose iodized salt ;
- The diet should be varied but not excessive, neither too much is too good, nor blindly taboo;
- Avoid tobacco and alcohol, and avoid drinking strong tea and coffee. Nicotine, alcohol and caffeine are excreted in breast milk and can adversely affect infant growth, nervous system and sleep.
Don't give up breastfeeding easily
Despite the many benefits of breastfeeding, some mothers give up breastfeeding for reasons of knowledge, attitude and confidence.
Under normal circumstances, most mothers can successfully exclusively breastfeed their babies through effective sucking, timely breast emptying, and professional guidance.
Considering that some mothers give up breastfeeding due to their lack of knowledge, ignorance of the benefits of breastfeeding, or lack of confidence in themselves, resulting in reduced lactation.
No infant formula or milk replacer is comparable to breast milk, and most women have the ability to feed their own children, and mothers should have sufficient confidence to exclusively breastfeed their babies. If it is difficult, you can go to a professional medical institution for consultation. After evaluation by a professional, you can decide whether to breastfeed. Don't give up easily.
If after professional evaluation, if you have to use non-breastfeeding, you need to use formula milk or milk replacer suitable for 0-6 months old baby to feed the baby, ordinary liquid milk, adult milk powder, protein powder, soy milk powder, etc. The composition is far from that of breast milk and should not be used to feed infants 0-6 months old. Babies after 6 months can add complementary food, and it is recommended to use a silicone feeding set.
After this sharing, I believe that many mothers already know the benefits of breastfeeding. Finally, I would like to remind mothers that they must be confident that they can exclusively breastfeed their babies, and do not give up breastfeeding easily. If you encounter difficulties, you can consult Professionals then make a decision. I wish mothers a good mood every day, and babies grow up healthy and happy~
