As long as women have been giving birth to babies, there has been breastfeeding. Human breast milk is the most natural and nutritious way for a newborn baby to receive her sustenance. And while there have been dramatic improvements in infant formula over the years, it is generally agreed that breastfeeding is still the best way to feed your baby.

Until the last century, the overwhelming majority of women breast fed their babies. Not only was there a ready supply of breast milk available, but there was a lack of practical alternatives. Generally speaking, very few sought alternate ways of feeding babies unless the mother’s death or some other severe health problem made it impossible for the baby to be breast fed.

The 1950s saw the production of the first commercially made infant formulas. At the time, some believed that these new, fortified formulas were even healthier than breast milk, an idea which has since been soundly refuted. Once commercial production of infant formula started, bottle feeding was widely promoted until more than three quarters of American women bottle fed their babies in the 1970s, when bottle feeding reached its zenith.

Since the World Heath Organization has taken a stand on the issue, recommending that all babies be breast fed exclusively for at least six months from birth, breastfeeding rates have risen dramatically while bottle feeding numbers have seen a proportionate decrease.

Make no mistake; there have been marked improvements in infant formulas over the past sixty years. More and more infant formulas seek to emulate the nutritional content of breast milk. The problem comes in the fact that we don’t fully understand the chemical makeup or even all of the benefits of breastfeeding. What we do know is that breastfed babies are typically healthier and better able to fight off infections and sickness. This is believed to be the result of the baby taking in antibodies in the mother’s breast milk.

When it comes down to it, you just can’t improve on what nature intended. Breast milk is designed to give babies nourishment, and there’s nothing on earth which offers better nutrition for your baby than your breast milk.

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