Breastfeeding Support Group

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.

Many governmental strategies and international initiatives have promoted breastfeeding as the best method of feeding a child in his or her first year and beyond, as does the World Health Organization (WHO) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).