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Argumentative Essay: What Is Breast Best?

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Is Breast Best? From the moment that a child is born, the parents need to make difficult decisions, but the one choice that should be clear is to breastfeed. The controversy issue between breastfeeding and formula feeding is causing parents to question themselves and really have to decide what the best choice is for the child. Breastfeeding has been shown to be superior over formula feeding for many reasons. Breastfeeding is the preferred choice physically, nutritionally and economically for the mother and child. Nutritionally, breastfeeding provides specific antibodies which help to prevent infant and childhood diseases. Diseases such as RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infection) and Insulin-dependent Diabetes Mellitus are serious diseases in infants which can lead to death (Riordan 1997). Breastfeeding is a natural immunization for infants and mothers, decreasing risks such as pneumonia, SIDS, and childhood obesity in infants. Mothers decrease their risk for breast cancer, type 2 diabetes and weight gain (Stuebe 2009). Just as diseases can be immune from breast milk, breastmilk also aids in brain development. In “Breastfeeding benefits babies’ brains”, Stacey states, “babies who had …show more content…

When a mother breastfeeds they will burn more calories and lose the baby weight quickly. Breastfeeding can burn around 200-500 calories a day (Dermer 2001), that’s the production of milk in the mother’s body for an active metabolism. Along with the increased metabolism, breastfeeding acts as a natural birth control. It is found to be about 98-99 percent effective in the first 6 months (Dermer 2001). Having the absence of periods essentially creates the “natural spacing” (Dermer 2001) between pregnancies. Breastfeeding provides more than just short-term benefits for the mother and

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