Breastfeeding's Importance Begins with You

Welcome to The Breastfeeding Cafe Carnival!

This post was written as part of The Breastfeeding Cafe’s Carnival. For more info on the Breastfeeding Cafe, go to www.breastfeedingcafe.wordpress.com. For more info on the Carnival or if you want to participate, contact Claire at clindstrom2 {at} gmail {dot} com. Today’s post is about the importance of breastfeeding. Please read the other blogs in today’s carnival listed below and check back for more posts July 18th through the 31st!

Many people will talk about the importance of breastfeeding.

How it is the best nutrition for your child.

That it is beneficial for a mother’s health.

Or even that it is best for the environment.

All are laudable reasons which can create a sense of importance for breastfeeding.

However, as breastfeeding is such an intimate relationship between mother and child, it is also a very personal take on why breastfeeding is so important.

When we were expecting our first son, breastfeeding is something that I just knew I was going to do.

I knew that the milk my body made would be customized for that child and change to meet their needs as they grew.

I also knew the research out there indicating numerous health benefits for both mother and child. Like many mothers, I wanted to decrease the likelihood he would suffer from allergies, ear infections, and other maladies for which breastfeeding can provide some protection.

Being ecologically sound was a benefit that helps me ‘feel good’ and would ensure a much easier hit on the pocketbook.

There is even the weight loss that has accompanied two of my post pregnancy experiences. (Who doesn’t love a way to burn extra calories without getting sweaty? And, I’ll share that I’m about 17 pounds lighter now than when J was conceived.)

While these were all great talk points that contributed to why breastfeeding was and is important to me, there was an even bigger reason.

The closeness to that child through such an intimate act of love was the driving force behind my desire to breastfeed even when we hit bumps in the road. Nurturing that child through breastfeeding became the most important reason of all for me.

Yes, I know that you can bond with a child in other ways. And there are times when breastfeeding will just not happen between a mother and child.

However, there is something so special about a little one nuzzling at the breast and the communication from the nursing child that all is right in the world. And, for those precious moments, it can seem that all is right in the world.

Wonder who influenced me to feel that experiencing the intimate breastfeeding relationship?

That would be MY mother who even now can reflect back on nursing my sisters and I (albeit for much shorter times than I’ve nursed my boys) and talk about how wonderful it was to have a baby at the breast.

For my readers, I’d love to hear why you view breastfeeding as important in your life or the life of a child.

After all, the importance of breastfeeding begins with you!