Advantage and Disadvantage of Breastfeeding for Mother

Breastfeeding for Mother:

Breastfeeding is a beautiful, amazing bonding experience that women have the opportunity to share with their little ones. Every woman’s journey to motherhood is different. When a mother chooses to breastfeed, she invests in her baby’s future. Breast feeding decisions bring many advantages for mothers, besides that many women face some negative experiences throughout their breastfeeding life.

Lactation, or milk production in the breasts, begins about one to three days after a woman gives birth. Pituitary hormones stimulate milk production in response to the stimulation of the infant’s suckling the nipples. Breast milk provides the ideal nutrition that is needed for a baby’s development and growth.

What are the Benefits of Breastfeeding for Mother?

Various advantages of breast-feeding for mother have pointed out below:

1. Breast-feeding reduces the risk of breast cancer.
2. Reduces the risk of uterine and ovarian cancer.
3. De Lessens crease the risk of osteoporosis in later life.
4. Breastfeeding is a natural contraceptive (During lactation, menstruation ceases, offering a form of contraception) and helps in child spacing.
5. Promotes emotional health and creates bonding with the child.
6. Hormones released during breast-feeding create feelings of warmth and calm in the mother.
7. Breast-feeding burns extra calories, so it promotes postpartum weight loss faster.
8. Cost less to breastfed.
9. Less equipment to maintain and store breast milk.
10. Suckling helps to prevent post-partum hemorrhage and helps the uterus return to its normal size more quickly.
11. Breast-feeding decreases insulin requirements for breast-feeding mothers.
12. Breast-feeding stabilizes the progress of maternal endometriosis.

The disadvantage of Breastfeeding for Mother:

There are some disadvantages of breast-feeding, which are mentioned in the following:

1. Inability to measure the volume of milk the baby has consumed.
2. No one else can feed the baby.
3. Breast-feeding can be perceived to be painful, messy, and tiring.
4. Breastfeeding is an activity that requires lots of energy.
5. Breastfeeding can be difficult to establish without adequate support and information.
6. It is more difficult for breast-feeding mothers to return to work and need to return to the workplace shortly after giving birth.
7. Breastfed babies wake more often during the night to feed and Mothers are obliged to wake up at night to breastfeed their babies and make interruption in sleeping.
8. The mother may need to modify her diet, she needs to avoid foods and beverages that are too spicy.
9. Experience painful, engorged, and cracker nipples.
10. Experience embarrassing or inconvenient for leaking milk.
11. Feeling uneasy in a public place during breast-feeding.
12. Passed some medication and disease through breast milk.
13. Change Shape and appearance of the breast.
14. Reduce sexual interest as decrease estrogen level that works as a vaginal lubricant.

Maria Mona

Maria Khatun Mona is a Founder and Editor of Nursing Exercise Blog. She is a Nursing and Midwifery Expert. Currently she is working as a Registered Nurse at Evercare Hospital, Dhaka, Bangladesh. She has great passion in writing different articles on Nursing and Midwifery. Mail her at “maria.mona023@gmail.com”