Should My Baby Be Breast-Fed?

Life is filled with trouble.  This is a given.  Men spend considerable time and fortune looking for remedies to life’s troubles with mixed results.  Many times, their solutions only worsen the trouble. 

Life’s troubles take on a myriad of faces, for which men concoct a myriad of attempts to solve, but to the blood-bought, the solution to all of life’s problems is Jesus Christ.  Believers have been roundly ridiculed by the sons of Adam for their child-like faith with the contemptuous slur: “Yeah, ha ha, your Jesus is the answer to everything!”  And the answer to that is, “Yes, that’s true!”

Think on this marvelous verse: Psalm 46:1:

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

To the born-again, our God “is a very present help in trouble.”  Following verse one in Psalm 46, you’ll find the beautiful words in verses two through five:

2 Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;

3 Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.

4 There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.

5 God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early.

Have you found the solution to all of life’s troubles?  Have you been born again?  Are you ready to shed life’s sin and bondages?  Are you ready to participate in the joy of salvation?  Today is your day of salvation—and what a glorious day this is!  Click onto “Further With Jesus” for childlike instructions and immediate entry into the Kingdom of God. NOW FOR TODAY'S SUBJECT.

GOD SAID, Genesis 49:25:

Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee; and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb:

GOD SAID, Psalm 22:9:

But thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother''s breasts.

GOD SAID, Isaiah 28:9:

Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.

MAN SAID:  Our grand universities are the high places of enlightenment.  The Bible should have always been—and certainly today is—irrelevant to the intelligent segment of our society.  Bible-thumpers as a whole are uneducated and easily led.

Now, THE RECORD.  Welcome to GodSaidManSaid feature article 651 that will once again certify the full inerrancy of the God of the Bible.  All of these features are archived on this site in text and streaming audio for the edification of the blood-bought and as ammunition in the battle for the souls of men.  Thank you for coming.  May God’s face shine upon you and all that you put your hand to. 

Disregard a directive, a commandment, or a judgment in the Word of God, and one must pay the price of doing the wrong thing.  It is an immutable law.  Galatians 6:7:

Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

The subject of breast-feeding is a glaring example of man’s disregard for God’s Word and an issue that impacts directly every human on this earth.  GodSaidManSaid has published multiple features on breast-feeding.  Several paragraphs in review follow:

From the GodSaidManSaid feature Breast-Feeding:

I am compelled to preface this article on the subject of breast-feeding with this note to mothers, who for reasons such as adoption, various medications harmful to the child via the mother’s milk, mothers who are HIV positive, or other reasons, that God is more than able to supply your child’s needs.  Be sure of this one thing: God is fully aware of your inability to fulfill His directive concerning the matter of breast-feeding.  Pray over your baby’s formula and food before feeding your child and you can be confident that God will supply that which is lacking.  Let not your heart be troubled. 

Man said that baby formula concocted by science was equal to or even superior to mother’s breast milk.  Starting in the late 1940s, breast-feeding began to fall out of favor nationally.  By the 1950’s, infant formula gained widespread endorsement from the pediatric community and breast-feeding for millions of children and mothers became a thing of the past. 

Fewer than half of American babies are fed exclusively breast milk during their initial stay at the hospital.  When the infants reach the age of six months, only 19% receive breast milk and, at the ripe old age of one year, only 2%.  Now, compare that with the global average of children being weaned from the breast at 4.2 years.  The American Academy of Pediatrics now weighs in with the recommendation that, for the baby’s optimal health, a mother should breast-feed for at least a full year.  The benefits of breast-feeding for mother and child are staggering.  The list is long and ever-increasing.

A growing body of evidence now shows that DHA, which is a fatty acid, is the essential structural ingredient of breast milk.  DHA is lacking in infant formula due to a ban by the FDA.  Note:  The ban has been lifted on DHA in infant formula, but be assured that the new and improved formula will not duplicate that which is in mother’s milk.  The following is a quote from Dr. William C. Douglass on the subject of DHA and was written prior to the lifting of the ban:

Breast-fed babies have an IQ of six to 10 points higher than formula-fed babies.  Scientists and nutritional experts attribute this to DHA, an omega-3 fatty acid that’s an essential structural component of the brain and retina.  It’s found naturally in mother’s milk.  In case it will impress you, the World Health Organization and the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations also endorse the addition of DHA to infant formula.

During the last trimester of pregnancy is when the mother transfers to her baby much of the DHA needed for the development of his or her brain and nervous system.  The DHA content of the mother’s diet reflects in the amount of DHA passed on to the baby.  If the baby is not breast-fed at all, it also receives no DHA after birth and is shortchanged in neurological development, thus impairing mental and visual acuity.  DHA levels of premature infants are especially low, since they miss much of that last trimester and when born, haven’t developed the sucking mechanism—so they are usually bottle-fed.  It’s a wonder they live at all, and it’s a crime they aren’t getting DHA in their bottle from birth.

I found the following excerpt written by Dr. R. D. Russell especially exciting.  It reads as follows:

The cells in the mother’s milk not only attack bacteria that may be harmful to the baby, but apparently they have the ability to produce antibodies that destroy bacteria and viruses as well.  Evidently, the infant who is exposed to infections and nurses from its mother also produces changes in the mother’s breast.  Within hours, the next milk contains antibodies and immunoglobins to protect the baby before the infant exhibits visible symptoms.

An article in the publication called Mothering points out that mother’s milk has 400 nutrients that cannot be duplicated in a lab.  Research suggests that breast-feeding reduces the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, childhood cancer, diarrheal diseases, lower respiratory illness, ear infections, bacterial infections, diabetes, infant botulism, Crohn’s Disease, ulcerative colitis, and cavities. 

In May of 2001, the Journal of the American Medical Association cited two studies which report that breast-feeding not only boosts babies’ immune systems and brain power, but may also reduce the risk of being overweight.  Harvard Medical School, in a study of 15,000 babies, found that newborns given formula were 20% more likely to be overweight in adolescence versus their breast-fed counterparts. 

Imagine, the following lead paragraph was found in an article in Discover magazine titled “Got Cancer.”  It reads as follows:

When Cathatrina Svanborg and her research associates began mixing mother’s milk and cancer cells together seven years ago, she wasn’t looking for a cure for cancer; she was after a way to fight germs.  Nevertheless, the physician and immunologist at Lund University in Sweden has discovered that a previously taken-for-granted component of ordinary human breast milk compels cancer cells—every type of cancer cell tested—to die.  [End of quotes]

From the GodSaidManSaid feature The Amazing Word of God -- Updates -- Circumcision, Pigs, Church, Breast-Feeding:

The following paragraphs are from Health Daily News. The title of the October 29, 2008 report is, “Breast-Fed Baby May Mean Better Behaved Child:”

Add yet another potential benefit to breast-feeding:  Fewer behavioral problems in young children.

Parents of youngsters who were breast-fed as infants were less likely to report that their child had a behavior problem or psychiatric illness during the first five years of life, a new study found. 

And the likelihood of mental health issues decreased in proportion to the duration of breast-feeding, meaning that a child who had been breast-fed for a year was less likely to have behavior problems than a child who had been breast-fed for just two months. 

Previous research has shown that breast milk offers numerous benefits for babies and that breast-feeding can benefit both mother and infant.  Babies who are breast-fed are less likely to suffer from ear infections, diarrhea, pneumonia, wheezing, and bacterial and viral illnesses, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).  Research has also linked breast-feeding with a reduced risk of obesity, diabetes, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), and certain cancers, according to the AAP.

For mothers, breast-feeding helps the uterus quickly return to its pre-pregnancy shape and helps burn additional calories, which can help get rid of extra pregnancy weight, the AAP reports.  Additionally, breast-feeding is believed to help nurture the mother-child bond.

The new study reviewed more than 100,000 interviews of parents and guardians of children between the ages of 10 months and 18 years who participated in the National Survey of Children’s Health.  Parents were asked about breast-feeding and about their child’s behavior and mental health.

Parents of children who were breast-fed were 15% less likely to be concerned about their child’s behavior, compared to formula-fed infants.  And the breast-fed children were 37% less likely to have a medically diagnosed behavioral or conduct problem, according to the study.

And, Knutson (a resident in the department of psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston) said, the effect of breast-feeding appeared to be cumulative, with those who were breast-fed for a longer duration even less likely to have behavioral problems.

She also said the study found “a correlation between breast-feeding and cognitive development.”

“These findings are certainly intriguing,” said Dr. Debra Bogen, a pediatrician in the division of general academic pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.

The study adds to the “overwhelming evidence that women should, if they can, offer breast milk to their babies,” she added.  [End of quote]

The following short paragraph is from USA Weekend:

You probably know that breast-feeding boosts a baby’s health.  But, who knew how dramatically it benefits a mother?  I didn’t until I read a new Swedish study of 18,326 women, showing that mothers who breast-fed infants for 13 months or more were about half as apt to develop rheumatoid arthritis as those who did not breast-feed.  Breast-feeding for one to twelve months reduced RA risk 26%.  Experts can’t fully explain the surprise, but they note that breast-feeding can change levels of immune-regulating hormones in ways that may discourage RA.  There’s more:  A large analysis last year concluded that breast-feeding also might protect mothers against type 2 diabetes and breast and ovarian cancer.  [End of quotes]

From the GodSaidManSaid feature Info Briefs II:

In a December 2006 issue of Science News, under the title “Milk Therapy,” the following paragraphs were found:

When scientists started analyzing breast milk, they found that the third-largest constituent of breast milk, making up about 1 percent by volume, is a mixture of indigestible sugars known as oligosaccharides.  Many of these sugars occur only in human milk. 

Initially, the scientists thought that these were useless by-products of milk production.  But why would mothers expend so much energy creating compounds that their babies can’t use? 

In the past few years, scientists have solved this puzzle.  David Newburg, of Massachusetts General Hospital in Charlestown and his colleagues genetically engineered mice to produce oligosaccharides in their milk.  He then gave their pups campylobacter, a bacterium that causes diarrhea.  The pups that drank oligosaccharides didn’t get sick. 

Unlike the antibodies that mothers pass along to their infants through breast milk, oligosaccharides can protect the baby from pathogens to which the mother has never been exposed. 

For a pathogen to infect a person via the digestive tract, it first has to latch on to the sugars that line the gut wall.  Oligosaccharides have binding sites that are identical to the ones on the gut-wall sugars, so the pathogens attach to the oligosaccharides instead of to the lining of the gut.  Once bound to oligosaccharides, pathogens travel harmlessly through the intestinal tract.

He suggests that bacteria can’t evolve a resistance to oligosaccharides because if they change in such a way that they no longer bind to the oligosaccharides, they also can’t bind to the cell wall to infect their targets.  “The mechanisms for protection in milk are so exquisite,” Newburg marvels. 

Lactoferrin is a dazzling multitalented protein.  In breast-fed babies, it can appropriately suppress inflammation or boost immune activity.  It also fights viruses, bacteria, and fungi.  Even after the protein has broken down in the gut, the fragments fight urinary-tract infections as they are expelled from the body. 

Because lactoferrin lowers the immune system’s inflammatory overreactions, it may be useful against arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and septic shock.

The many claims for lactoferrin’s capabilities “may look suspicious,” admits Michal Zimecki, an immunologist at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Wroclaw.  Lactoferrin “seems like a golden bullet, but it really is so.” [End of quotes]

June 25, 2013, the headline in LiveScience reads, “Breast-fed children more likely to climb the social ladder.”  Several paragraphs follow:

Children who are breast-fed may be more likely to reach a higher social class than their parents, a new study finds. 

The researchers looked at about 34,000 people in the U.K., either born in 1958 or in 1970, and compared their social class at the age 33 or 34 with that of their fathers when they were children.  Among the study participants, those who had been breast-fed were more likely to have moved up the social hierarchy in adulthood, which the researchers defined as having a job of higher social status than their fathers. 

The study found that while breast-feeding increased the chance of moving upward socially by 24 percent, it also reduced the chance of sliding downward by 20 percent. 

The results suggest that breast-feeding improved children’s neurological development, resulting in better cognitive abilities, which in turn helped them with their upward move in society, the researchers said. 

Breast-fed children in the study also had fewer signs of emotional stress, which could have contributed to their success later in life, according to the study published today (June 24, 2013) in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood.

Previous studies have suggested that nutrients in breast milk improve cognitive development.  Similarly, skin-to-skin contact between mother and child has been linked to enhanced mother-child bonding, and reduced stress. 

“Perhaps the combination of physical contact and the most appropriate nutrients required for growth and brain development is implicated in the better neurocognitive and adult outcomes of breast-fed infants,” the researchers wrote in their study. 

The results suggest that there may be lifelong social benefits from breast-feeding, the study said.  Such benefits may be even greater for more vulnerable children who are born preterm or with low birth rate.  [End of quote]

When the God of the Bible puts His imprimatur on anything, wise men and women take heed.  God’s Word is true and righteous altogether—a place to build a life that will last forever. 

GOD SAID, Genesis 49:25:

Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee; and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb:

GOD SAID, Psalm 22:9:

But thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother''s breasts.

GOD SAID, Isaiah 28:9:

Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.

MAN SAID:  Our grand universities are the high places of enlightenment.  The Bible should have always been—and certainly today is—irrelevant to the intelligent segment of our society.  Bible-thumpers as a whole are uneducated and easily led.

Now you have THE RECORD.

 

References:

Authorized King James Version

Gholipour, B., “Breast-fed children more likely to climb the social ladder,” LiveScience, June 25, 2013

GodSaidManSaid, “Breast-Feeding”

GodSaidManSaid, “Info Briefs II”

GodSaidManSaid, “The Amazing Word of God -- Updates -- Circumcision, Pigs, Church, Breast-Feeding” 

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