All About Your Child

Give your child the best.

Although most parents know that breast feeding is the best choice, but the perceived inconvenience, previous attempts failure and lack of knowledge on the actual advantages that breastmilk have caused many newborns to be denied benefiting from breastfeeding.

In the beginning, it may be frustrating and may take some effort to get it started right, but once the perserverance has passed the test, you are on your way to make a big difference in you and your baby’s life.

Breastfeeding creates a special bond between you and your baby. Every mother’s milk has a unique smell to a baby. This enhances bonding between the mother and baby. In fact this is a great help to promote behavioural development of the baby. Bottle feeding is merely providing food and even then, not necessarily the best food.

All the right kinds of fat in breastmilk comes in higher quantity but is more easily absorbable than formula milk. These include Omega fatty acids, such as DHA and AHA, which enhance your baby’s brain and vision development when they needed most.

Breastmilk contains more carbohydrates compared to formula milk to meet your baby’s needs.

Breastmilk contains less protein than formula milk, but this protein is of a form that is more digestible for the sensitive stomach. All the protein from breastmilk can be absorbed by your baby, unlike formula milk.

The proportion of the nutrients, vitamins and minerals in breastmilk changes with the needs of your growing baby up to 6 months of age. Formula milk proportion stays the same and are often less easily absorbable.

The amount of water in breast milk is just right to satisfy your baby’s thirst, thus, when you breastfeed your baby, you do not need to give water at all. The proportion of water in formula milk is dependent on how much you put in.

There are more than a hundred ingredients in breastmilk that cannot be created with human hands or brain. These are important for your baby’s complete development.

The anitbodies in breastmilk help your baby fight against infection. These are absent in formula milk. Bottle fed babies are more likely to suffer from diarrhea, ear, lung and urine infections, increases anxiety and visits to the clinic.

The taste of breast milk varies according to the mother’s diet while formula milk taste the same all the time. Thus, breastfed babies are more ready to try new food during weaning then bottle fed babies.

In the long run, breastfed babies are less likely to develop obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes when they grow up.

The best part is the mother gets to return back to her pre-pregnant weight more quickly because more calories are burnt when producing breast milk. Breast feeding also protects the mother from breast cancer.

My neighbour’s daughter, Bernice, is turning 1 month old today. Bernice’s daddy and mommy are Chinese. As the tradition goes, they will give a ‘Full Month’ celebration cake with red eggs and ang-ku kueh.

The cake being round symbolises that its a completion of the entire pregnancy cycle and moves on to parenthood.

The eggs symbolised a new life. Red colourings were used to dye the egg shells, as the colour red is an auspicious colour for Chinese. Whenever a Chinese celebrates any occasion, you are bound to see red everywhere.

Ang Koo Kueh or Red Tortoise Cake symbolises longevity and prosperity.

The tortoise shape (right) is to be given when you had a baby girl. And when you had a baby boy, you have to give both shapes. In olden days, the round ang ku (left) is shape into a cylinder.

For ALL Chinese, its really a very important day, as it marks the day of the end of the confinement period for both mommy and baby.

In fact for my neighbour’s case its a big celebration too, ‘cos Bernice is the first child. As for mommy, its a great relief! Finally, she can bathe!

Yes, the Chinese believes that after child birth, the pores on our skin is wide open and will stay wide open for 1 month, so mommy is not allow to touch or try to avoid water and wind. The Chinese believes that once the water and wind gets into the wide open pores, the chances of mommy having rheumatism is almost 100%.

I remember the time when I was breastfeeding my younger son, I would clean my breast with warm towel, I think hygiene for baby is very important; and because I need to get in contact with water at every feed, my mom-in-law interfered when I was breastfeeding my elder child, so much so that I was ‘forced’ to change to bottle-feed for good! But of ‘cos the main reasons was not that, I wouldn’t want to go into that story today, ‘cos the main star for today’s blog is Bernice, my cute little neighbour.

So, Happy 1st Month Birthday to Bernice!

P.S. Bernice’s daddy and mommy wasn’t very keen on putting their baby’s photo on the web, so I’ve got to respect them.