Date: 10 Mar 2025
Proper infant and newborn nutrition is paramount to your baby’s health from birth through adulthood. The World Health Organization recommends six months of exclusive breastfeeding. Breastfeeding is essential for reducing mortality and morbidity rates, reducing your child’s risk of developing chronic diseases throughout their life span, and enhancing their physical and cognitive development.
Regrettably, in most countries including Kenya, less than a fourth of the children have the required feeding frequency and dietary diversity. Inappropriate feeding techniques and practices account for about a third of the causes of child malnutrition, compounded by the proliferation of processed foods.
Infants are very sensitive; you should take good care of them and provide the best out there. This includes safe and comfortable baby feeding products that ensure your child enjoys feeding and gets all the daily nutrients for their growth.
This article seeks to guide you, a new parent, on how to feed your child for enjoyable, healthy, and fulfilled parenting. Below, you will learn the importance of breastfeeding, essential breastfeeding products, why you should combine breastfeeding and bottle feeding, the right feeding quantity for your child, how to prepare and introduce your child to homemade solid foods, and the different breastfeeding supplies covered by health insurance providers.
Before we look at the health benefits of breastfeeding, here are a few products that you need as a new mother to help in breastfeeding.
Breast Pump: For collecting and storing breast milk easily and efficiently, ensuring flexibility, shared feeding responsibilities, and continued breastfeeding support. You can find one here
Natural Teats: Designed to resemble your breast and provide a similar experience to breastfeeding.
Baby Bottle: For feeding your child milk
Natural Oil Cream: For you and the baby, you can use Zinc and Castor Oil Cream with Lanolin
Breast Pads: that you can wear on your bra to collect leaking breast milk. Here are the best breast pads in Kenya
Breastfeeding is when you feed your infant baby breast milk directly from your breast. It is also known as nursing.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends exclusive breastfeeding (no water, normal, or juice) for six months and continuing breastfeeding through the infant’s first year, even after weaning.
The World Health Organization (WHO) endorses breastfeeding for two years because the benefits continue. It would help to start as early as an hour after birth for the most significant benefits.
One decision you will make as a parent is whether to nurse your child. To make an informed decision, read the numerous physical, emotional, and medical benefits of breastfeeding for you and your child.
There are many benefits of breastfeeding to a newborn that make most health authorities and practitioners recommend it, including:
Breast milk has everything your baby needs for the first six months of their life, in the appropriate proportions. Its composition changes according to your child’s changing needs.
The breasts produce a thick, yellowish fluid called colostrum in the first few days following birth. It has essential compounds, like being rich in protein and low in sugar. No wonder you cannot replace it with a formula.
Colostrum is the first milk that helps your child’s immature digestive tract develop. Gradually, your breasts will produce more milk as your child’s stomach grows.
Breast milk contains many antibodies, including immunoglobulin A (IgA), to help your child fight bacteria and viruses. IgA, for instance, protects an infant from falling ill by forming a protective layer in the juvenile’s digestive system, nose, and throat.
Breastfeeding can reduce your child’s risk for many diseases and illnesses, including:
According to a study by Maike Miriam Grube and Martin Schlaud et al. in 2015, exclusive breastfeeding for at least four months significantly reduces the risk of an infant developing obesity and overweight. It is because a breastfed child:
When you are nursing your baby, you receive the following benefits:
Breast milk contains approximately twenty calories per ounce. Therefore, feeding your child 20 ounces daily sweeps out 400 calories from your body. That means a lactating mother has an easier time cutting pregnancy weight healthy.
The uterus grows immensely during pregnancy, from a pearl’s size to fill your abdomen. Following delivery, the uterus undergoes involution, which helps it return to its original size. Oxytocin, a hormone that increases during pregnancy, facilitates the process.
Oxytocin levels also increase during breastfeeding. It boosts uterine contractions and lower bleeding, assisting your uterus to return to its original size.
Postpartum depression is a common phenomenon for mothers following childbirth. However, you are less likely to develop PPD if you nurse your child. Breastfeeding increases oxytocin levels which have anti-anxiety effects and encourages bonding.
A lactating mother is at lower risk of suffering from the following:
Continued nursing can also pause menstruation and ovulation. Menstrual cycle suspension is a natural method of ensuring you have some time between your pregnancies. It will also allow you to enjoy time with the newborn child.
You will learn to read your child’s cues, and the baby will learn to trust caregivers, shaping your child’s early behavior.
It is cost-effective. The cost of formula can be ten dollars a day, depending on the amount, type, and brand your child drinks. While breastfeeding can have initial costs, like nipple creams and breast pads, it is more affordable in the long run.
Breast milk contains many elements, including antibodies that protect your child from diseases. It is the best beginning you can give your child, provided you can and are healthy. Moreover, nursing your child is convenient and healthy for you, the mom.
However, breastfeeding is a personal choice. Irrespective of your decision, your healthcare provider can help you make an informed decision.
Breastfeeding provides numerous benefits for infants, both in the short term and long term. Breast milk is uniquely designed to meet a baby's nutritional needs and contains antibodies that help strengthen the immune system. Here are some key benefits of breastfeeding for infants:
The World Health Organization (WHO) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommend exclusively breastfeeding for the first six months of life. During this period, breast milk provides all the necessary nutrients and hydration required for optimal growth and development.
After six months, complementary foods (such as pureed fruits, vegetables, and cereals) should be introduced while continuing breastfeeding up to two years or beyond, as long as both the mother and baby are comfortable. Breast milk continues to provide essential nutrients and immune protection even after solid foods are introduced.
Breast milk is a complete source of nutrition, providing essential nutrients for an infant's growth and development. Some of the key nutrients found in breast milk include:
Colostrum, often referred to as "liquid gold," is the first form of breast milk produced by the mother in the first few days after birth. It is thick, yellowish, and highly concentrated with essential nutrients and immune-boosting properties. Some key benefits of colostrum include: