top of page
Mother's Health Benefits
Just like in the case of your child's health, there are also many short and long term health benefits associated with both breastfeeding and prolonging your breastfeeding relationship for you.
1. Prolonging your breastfeeding relationship reduces your risk of breast cancer and ovarian cancer.
"A lifetime history of breastfeeding for less than 12 months is associated with an increased risk for breast cancer" (Spatz & Lessen, 2011. p. 5)
3. Prolonging your breastfeeding relationship also reduces your risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrom, osteoporosis, and rheumatoid arthritis (Spatz & Lessen, 2011. p. 5).
1. Prolonging your breastfeeding relationship helps you lose weight (Rossman et al., 2015).
Breastfeeding burns a lot calories and what better way to lose some of your pregnancy weight than by feeding your child? Also, because breastfeeding burns so many calories, it is important to make sure that you keep yourself well nourished and hydrated.
2. Breastfeeding lowers your blood pressure (Spatz & Lessen, 2011).
In both the short and long term, prolonging your breastfeeding relationship is associated with lower blood pressure.
3. Breastfeeding acts as a natural birth control (Spatz & Lessen, 2011).
Breastfeeding has been found to suppress, or hold back, ovulation and thus, your menstrual cycles. Your body naturally tries to prevent you from becoming pregnant while nursing an infant so that you you don't compromise your nutrient stores. While this method of birth control is not 100% reliable, women who exclusively breastfeed and prolong the breastfeeding relationship have a very small chance of becoming pregnant during that period.
4. Breastfeeding helps you sleep more (Spatz & Lessen, 2011).
Exclusive breastfeeding, including waking up to breastfeed throughout the night has been found to improve sleep. Mothers who exclusively breastfeed through the night have been found to experience less sleep disturbances and to experience 40-45 minutes more sleep a night than mothers whose spouses choose to supplement with formula in the night.
Your infant feeding decision can impact not only the health of your baby, but also your personal health. Prolonging your
breastfeeding relationship reduces the risks for a number serious health complications that extend way beyond the breastfeeding period.
In the short term . . .
In the long term . . .
bottom of page