This I Believe

Constanze - Dallas, Texas
Entered on March 4, 2007
Age Group: 30 - 50
  • Bellarmine University — Education, unabridged

This I believe.

I believe in breastfeeding my children

I believe in breastfeeding my children. Not because of the numbers, that breastfed babies are shown to have less allergies, ear infections or respiratory illnesses – ok yes maybe because of that, but mainly because isn’t that what nature intended us to do?

I am proud of my breasts. I have not always been. When I was a teenager and they became just a little too large for my frame I used to hide them under baggy clothes and I was terrified when anyone even mentioned my bust size. But over the years I so to say ‘grew into them’. Not only have they been a means of giving me pleasure over the years, but more importantly, as I grew from woman into mother, they have been this amazing tool for nurturing my children. Not only by providing the ultimate infant food, but by letting me take time out of the day, take time out of cleaning or computer time or worrying and just letting me focus on the miraculous creation, my baby. There is nothing better to me than holding my baby in my arms while he drinks eagerly from my breast. To look into his eyes while he enjoys the warmth and comfort of my body. Or to know that anytime, wherever I am I will have the ability to produce food for my child.

A smart woman once compiled a list of 101 reasons to breastfeed your child. Once she reached number 101 she just continued on. There are almost as many reasons to breastfeed your baby than there are components not yet discovered by scientist inside of breast milk. And not all of these reasons are for baby alone. When I heard that I can reduce my risk of ovarian cancer by about one-third, oh yeah, that’s definitely an added bonus. And, if I should ever have a daughter, I can lower her risk of developing breast cancer by 25% just by breastfeeding her as an infant.

But I wasn’t going to talk about numbers, rather about my deep believe that by breastfeeding my children I do what’s best for them. And I admit, reading research about breastfed babies having higher IQs, I feel like I am doing my little part in making this world a smarter world. One baby at a time.