This article summarizes why breastfeeding is so great. It is superfood and medicine for every baby. It’s what every baby deserves. And to think that Heavenly Father designed women to be the creators of such a wonder substance! Amazing!

La Leche League is a mother-to-mother support group for breastfeeding. Go to http://llliorg. to find a monthly meeting near you and read the breastfeeding FAQs. Here is the link for their magazine, which is now free online for anybody: La Leche League’s New Beginnings

Don’t fall for the tricks of the slick artificial baby milk industry. What are these tricks? Read here http://www.westonaprice.org/childrens-health/tricks-of-the-infant-food-industry

Many obstacles to breastfeeding fall away when we do “biological nurturing,” a term coined by Suzanne Colson. Watch and learn here http://biologicalnurturing.com/video/bn3clip.html

You might think that you can’t breastfeed. Did you know that breastfeeding has natural laws? Learn and apply the laws and you can be successful at breastfeeding. Here’s a video about the Seven Natural Laws of Breastfeeding.

If I absolutely had done everything I could to nurse my baby, applied all the laws above, and had not success, or had a rare condition that precluded breastfeeding, I would make my own baby milk and not use artificial baby milk created by the ABM industry. I would use this recipe from the Weston A. Price foundation and feed my baby with an SNS to involve the skin to skin contact of breastfeeding.

Did you know that the ancient Hebrew word for “wean” also means “to ripen”? I learned that from Dr. and Mrs. Sears’ The Baby Book. When the fruits of our wombs, our babies, are weaned when they are fully ripe or ready, they receive tremendous blessings of health, strength and vigor given to them from their mother tree. I remember one time picking apricots off of our tree with my mother-in-law. She noted that the apricots that got to stay on the tree the longest so they could draw strength from the tree tasted the best. Many mothers find that when they let their babies nurse as long as possible, the babies have much fewer ear infections, allergies, asthma, and other illnesses.

 

In the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, the ancient prophet Lehi sees a vision of the Tree of Life. The fruit of the tree of life is the sweetest of all fruit, the most desirous of all things. When Lehi’s son Nephi asks for the meaning of the tree of life, and the fruit, he is not given an answer in words, at first. Instead, he is shown an image of a mother. Not any mother, but Mary, the mother of Jesus.

 

Because he is shown this image Nephi instantly knows that the tree of life symbolizes love. Not just any love, but the love of God, as manifested by the gift of His Only Begotten Son, the Savior Jesus Christ. Why was Nephi  shown an image of a mother with a baby? Because everyone knows that mothers radiate pure love. A prophet of God, Joseph F. Smith stated that “A mother’s love comes nearer to the love of God than anything on earth.”

 

The tree of life motif is found in many cultures across time and space. See “tree of life” at wikipedia.org. It is God’s way of telling us that He loves us.

 

It’s no accident then that a mother has two anatomical features that are shaped like “trees of life” and that are part of her mothering/loving/nurturing ability: the breasts with the tree-like milk ducts and the placenta. These organs are literal “trees of life” to her baby. As a tree gives food, mothers give food and life from these nurturing organs. This is the way God has designed women.

 

Breastfeeding contributes significantly to a baby’s health. A bottlefed baby will tend to have a lower IQ and much greater health risks than an exclusively breastfed baby. A baby exclusively breastfed for at least six months, and then breastfed for a long time afterward, is much less likely to get ear infections, have cancer, have respiratory infections, be obese, have cholesterol problems as an adult, have emotional attachment problems, need braces, and many more health problems.

 

By breastfeeding your baby you can do something for your baby that no one else can do. As the Savior Jesus Christ is a tree of life to all of us, you, in a small way, can be a tree of life to your baby. Anytime you do something for someone else, that they can’t do for themselves, you are following the Savior’s example. You can emulate the Savior’s example and be a tree of life to your baby. Nobody but you as the baby’s mother can give your baby your milk the way you can. Your baby is only a baby for a small amount of time. Enjoy this time and consecrate your body to breastfeeding, even ecological breastfeeding! It’s something only you can do, and your body and spirit will benefit as well. You won’t have periods and you will have less risk of uterine, ovarian, and endometrial, and breast cancer. The earth will benefit too from fewer bottles and maxi-pads in the landfills. See http://www.nfpandmore.org/The%20Seven%20Standards%20Summary.pdf

A common problem for mom with a healthy supply is to have overactive letdown. This is where babies choke and sputter at the breast and can’t keep up with the flow. This is a great article to help with that issue http://www.llli.org/llleaderweb/lv/lvsepoct95p69a.html

Even if you adopted your baby, you can breastfeed! Go to http://asklenore.com