Jenna wrote:


The mother benefits too.  She will experie




Jenna wrote:


The mother benefits too.  She will experience less
lochia, amenorrhea, and faster return to prepregnancy weight along with long
term health benefits (Witters, 2003).


 


No meaning to pick on Jenna but I’m often bemused by the
fact that lists of the benefits to mothers frequently leave out the one I would
think most important: the hormones, most notably prolactin and oxytocin.
Prolactin is referred to as the mother love hormone and oxytocin is involved in
most everything that feels good from eating chocolate to orgasm to
breastfeeding. Altogether the hormones of lactation are stress reducing.
Mothers who forgo them must do their mothering from their heads while mothers
who breastfeed have their bodies working for good mothering as well as their
heads. 


 


Also, we are still speaking of benefits when these are
simply the biological norm. To rewrite Jenna’s statement, perhaps we should
say, "If a mother forgoes breastfeeding, she will experience greater
lochia, lose amenorrhea, lose the weight loss effect of breastfeeding, increase
her risk of cancer, and lose the effects of hormones that reduce stress and
promote maternal bonding.”




 
Alice Roddy
Breastfeeding is the biological norm for infants. It is a relationship that provides food, connection, protection from illness to the baby and stress reducing hormones to the mother.




 
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