Researchers say that they have discovered another benefit of breast-feeding: It may help to prevent the baby’s becoming overweight later in life. As reported in the German newsmagazine Focus, a Munich University research team determined the weight of 9,357 children five to six years of age and investigated the diet each had been fed as an infant.
The results showed that the children who had been breast-fed for three to five months were 35 percent less likely to be overweight when they entered school than those who had never been nursed. In fact, the longer a baby was breast-fed, the lower the probability of overweight. One researcher attributes this beneficial effect to the ingredients of mother’s milk, which aid the metabolism.
This is one of the benefits of extended breastfeeding and one of my reasons for waiting my son to self wean. (I’ve been breastfeeding him for 2 years next month.)
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