From the moment your baby is born, all you want to do is protect them and make the right choices to keep them healthy, happy and thriving. Here, Sheryl Service from Rumina Natural Care, the New Zealand distributors for NUK, talks you through the best ways to provide your baby with optimal immune-boosting nutrition and keep them healthy from birth through childhood.
OPTIMAL NUTRITION
No other baby food offers your baby the level of protection that breast milk does. Even with the first few drops of breast milk, your baby will absorb essential antibodies. These behave in a similar way to an immunisation and will ensure that your little one is protected against many illnesses. Numerous studies have shown that breastfed babies suffer less frequently from infections of the middle ear, diarrhoea and infections of airways and urinary tracts than babies that are bottle fed.
Breast milk is the perfect all-in-one meal for the first six months of your baby’s life. It contains all the nutrients they need to grow and develop – in the correct quantities and in the right combinations. This is why your baby needs nothing else for the first half of their first year. Not even water, not even on a sweltering hot day.
IT’S USER FRIENDLY
Breast milk is easily digested by little tummies, which is why breastfed babies rarely suffer from constipation and diarrhoea. As well as that, it is always at the correct temperature, it doesn’t need anything added, so is completely germ-free, and doesn’t eat into the family’s food budget.
EXTRA IMMUNITY
Like blood, breast milk is a living, liquid teeming with white blood cells. These cells are the body’s soldiers. As long as a baby is being breastfed, they will receive protection against all these organisms to which you are already immune. Breast milk also provides antibodies that protect your baby against any pathogens, such as any flu strains that are going around. The protection that breast milk offers is vital because your baby’s own immune system is still quite immature.
LONG-TERM HEALTH
Research proves that breastfeeding provides long term protection against diseases such as diabetes, ulcerative colitis, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, heart conditions, appendicitis and even tooth decay. Breast milk lowers the risk for certain cancers such as leukaemia and lymphoma and breastfeeding offers long-term protection against respiratory allergies, eczema and food allergies.
