Breastfeeding
Breastfeeding is the process of a woman feeding an infant or young child with milk from her breasts. Babies have a sucking reflex that enables them to suck and swallow milk. Also important in the process is an effective latch, a normal frenulum, and an adequate milk supply. For the equivalent in other mammals, see suckling.
Experimental evidence suggests that, barring certain health issues, human breast milk provides the optimal nutrition source for human infants. Disagreement does remain between experts regarding the optimal duration of breastfeeding to realize the benefits, as well as the relative risk of harm in using breast milk substitutes.
Breastfeeding may occur between the infant and its own mother, or another lactating female. Breast milk substitutes are available for mothers or families who cannot or prefer not to breastfeed their children. Examples of medically accepted alternatives to breastfeeding include feeding the infant expressed breast milk from its own mother, from another lactating female, pasteurized donor human milk, or commercially-available infant formulas. There are conflicting studies concerning the equivalence between available breast milk substitutes. In both term and preterm infants, the use of commercial breast milk substitutes have been proven safe and effective as a nutrition source but inferior to breastfeeding. Donor breast milk handling processes have been suspected in the reduction of effectiveness in pasteurized donor human milk.
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Breastfeeding
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