Scientific studies prove that breastfeeding and breast milk reduce the risk of morbidity in children and mothers while contributing to everyone’s health.

Breastfeeding is the basis of preventive medicine and public health:

• It prevents diseases in infants from birth and throughout their lives.
• It prevents chronic diseases in nursing mothers.

Investing in breastfeeding at the start of life pays off later in life.

Every mother should, immediately after birth, exclusively feed her baby breast milk until approximately six months of age. Afterwards, you should continue to breastfeed the age until the age of two (or as long as it suits the mother and the baby) and add foods according to the baby's age.

Breastfeeding – preventive medicine from birth

Breastfeeding can prevent serious diseases in babies such as infectious diseases and SIDS. Breastfeeding also prevents one of the common problems in children during this period: obesity. One out of every 5 children in first grade and one out of every 3 children in seventh grade in Israel - are overweight. Breastfed babies are at a lower risk (approximately 27% less) of becoming overweight or being obese later in life.

Breastfeeding is also linked to reducing the risk of developing Type II diabetes. Since Israel is among the countries with the highest incidence of this disease, anything that may reduce the risk is significant.

In premature infants, an exclusive diet of breast milk significantly reduces the risk of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) - a relatively common condition in premature infants that may endanger their life.

In Israel, it seems that optimal breastfeeding could have spared babies under 5 months of age 13% of diarrhea cases and 27.5% of pneumonia cases.

Studies further reveal that breastfed babies develop better than non-breastfed babies, both in early childhood and adulthood.

Breastmilk, microbiome and preventive medicine

Microbiome is a name for all bacteria found in our digestive tract. Establishment of the microbes in the intestine at the start of life is a complex process and has long-term effects on our health.

There are many differences in the composition of the microbiome between breastfed and non-breastfed babies. It is presumed that these differences are partly responsible for lowering the risk of babies contracting serious and chronic diseases during their life.

The bacteria in breast milk influences the composition and development of the microbiome in infants, and their positive effect continues even after the transition to solid food. Breast milk provides types of bacteria associated with reducing allergies, asthma and obesity.

Breastfeeding – preventive medicine for mothers

Breastfeeding women are less likely to get breast and ovarian cancer, develop high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes and high cholesterol.
For mothers, optimal breastfeeding would have prevented about 10% of all cases of breast cancer, ovarian cancer and diabetes. 258 of the deaths of mothers from breast cancer, ovarian cancer and diabetes are attributed to suboptimal breastfeeding.

You can find more information about breastfeeding on the Ministry of Health website on Parenting and Parents.