Benefits to just a little breastmilk? - Page 2

[kriket]

Originally Posted by annettemarie

Do you have a source for this? Everything I've ever heard says the opposite.

OP, is this what you are looking for? It doesn't have hard stats, but it does give some of the benefits of nursing a few days through a few years.
http://nursingmoms.net/2008/11/27/wh...-wean-my-baby/

NAK I will find it, It was either the newspaper, or Time or something like that. I think DH showed it to me.

ITA any is better than none, at any age!

DH says he remembers it was from a study in the Netherlands, he thinks.
NAK

[jeminijad]

I've also read that babies who are supplemented have health more similar to formula fed babies. That the gut flora from just one bottle of formula is altered for months... something about the pH of the gut, as well.

http://massbreastfeeding.org/formula/bottle.html

That is not to say that the breastmilk they do get isn't doing any good, just that the view I've encountered that any nursing will provide all of the benefits of EBF is not correct.

[texmati]

I'm sorry my op was unclear. I am not trying to compare supplementing vs ebf.

I'm was wondering, for a child 6 mos+, what are the benefits for nursing only a little. I admit I was hoping to hear information specifically about immune system benefits, but any benefits at all would be wonderful.

[annettemarie]

Originally Posted by jeminijad

I've also read that babies who are supplemented have health more similar to formula fed babies. That the gut flora from just one bottle of formula is altered for months... something about the pH of the gut, as well.

http://massbreastfeeding.org/formula/bottle.html

That is not to say that the breastmilk they do get isn't doing any good, just that the view I've encountered that any nursing will provide all of the benefits of EBF is not correct.

I must have missed where anyone made that claim. I thought we were comparing any breastmilk with no breastmilk at all.

[kriket]

Originally Posted by texmati

I'm was wondering, for a child 6 mos+, what are the benefits for nursing only a little. I admit I was hoping to hear information specifically about immune system benefits, but any benefits at all would be wonderful.

Honestly, I don't think there is a lot of research on that. Generally, "they" are thrilled if a mom nurses at all, ecstatic if she nurses 6 weeks, bonkers with joy is she nurses 4 months, and sadly, 6m many people consider 'term'

From personal experience, I know one benefit to nursing an older baby or toddler, is when they do get the sniffles, sick or just teething, and don't feel like eating (who does when they are sick? Even adults?) they have the perfect food available to help them get healthy again. My DS is almost 17m, and nurses once during the day, before bed, and once at night (half heartily some days) but the couple of times when he's had an upset stomach he will nurse 4-5x a day.

[octobermom]

I can personally say there are huge benifits I can't say if my baby was healthier because despite some serious issues reuiring sumplementing I was able to alos countinue breastfeeding but I can tell you thousands of time were I was thrilled we never gave up..
Nothing is more soothing during a hard day than some nummy milk. The ability of me to use Breastmilk to use squirt into infected eyes hurt ears and stuff noses was gold in itself..
Its a bond that can't compare to even the snuggliest of bottle feeding and that holds its own healing IMHO.
Deanna

[Sandstress]

Originally Posted by kriket

I have always read EBF for 6 months is the minimum where you see benefits from breastfeeding. As in EBF for less than 6m and FF infants have the same rate of illness and issues.

I would love to see a study on benefits of BFing a toddler.

One of the clearest benefits in human milk feeding is in the decrease in necrotizing enterocolitis in preterm infants. They are certainly not 6 months old, but there is clear benefit of human milk feeding. There are some papers that show a dose-related benefit as well, by comparing human milk based fortifier and cow milk based fortifier, and human milk with preterm infant formula supplementation.

Your statement seems pretty broad, and I would say that the preterm infant literature (at least) disputes it. I'm wondering if there was something specific you read regarding healthy 6 month olds that I have missed (as my interest is in preterm infants, I don't read a lot of literature about human milk feeding of older, healthy infants, if such literature exists.)

OP if you want to extrapolate this data (benefit for short durations and dose related benefit to mixing human milk and cow milk) then I would say that there is an immunologic/nutritional benefit for any human milk.

And I"m nursing a 14 month old twice a day, so I put what I believe into practice!

hope that helps,
Sandstress

[phathui5]

Originally Posted by kriket

I have always read EBF for 6 months is the minimum where you see benefits from breastfeeding. As in EBF for less than 6m and FF infants have the same rate of illness and issues.

I would love to see a study on benefits of BFing a toddler.

Some of the studies I've read looked at EBF for just three months versus artificial feeding and there was still good reason to bother with it.

This is a good article we used to use when I worked at WIC:

http://www.breastfeedingbasics.com/html/Benefits.shtml

[Heba]

Coming to this very late, but yesterday I attended a conference on lactation, where one speaker summarised the findings of several different studies showing the difference in rates of various illnesses (GI infection, otitis media, upper-respiratory infection in addition to NEC and sepsis in pre-term babies) among ebf, partially bf and non-bf children.  In every single one of these studies, the ebf group had the lowest rates of infection, pbf the next lowest, and nbf the highest.

So YES the research backs up what we can guess from our knowledge of the difference between the composition of breastmilk and formula - that every little bit of breastmilk is important, and from an immunological standpoint, partial feeding is indeed worthwhile.

(Not to mention all the other reasons why breastmilk and breastfeeding are important...and there are loads of those!)

[Heba]

And today, Charlie from Milk Matters writes on this very subject:

http://milkmatters.org.uk/2010/11/18/mixing-bottle-and-breast-it-doesnt-have-to-be-all-or-nothing/

[texmati]

Heba, thank you for your reply. My son has weaned since starting this thread, but I will def. keep this in mind for when my milk comes back in!