How Breastfeeding Benefits Our Environment

While the choice for breastfeeding is not for everyone one point to consider is that by breastfeeding you can greatly reduce the amount of waste that you produce. Most people don't consider breastfeeding when they are looking at ways to protect the environment. If you are able to breastfeed this choice ranks right up there with recycling when it comes to reducing your carbon footprint.

When you choose to breastfeed you are choosing to protect and preserve our environment.

So why is breastfeeding so green? Here are a few reasons why breastfeeding trumps formula when it comes to creating a more environmentally friendly world:

Breast milk is made by, breasts. plain and simple. The only ingredient in breast milk is the exact nutrition that your baby needs.

The ingredients in formula are not so basic. The Similac website states that their Advance Infant Formula contains, "Similac Advance Infant Nonfat Milk, Lactose, High Oleic Safflower Oil, Soy Oil, Coconut Oil, Whey Protein Concentrate, Less than 2% of: C. Cohnii Oil, M. Alpina Oil, Potassium Citrate, Calcium Carbonate, Ascorbic A, Choline Chloride, Ferrous Sulfate, Ascorbyl Palmitate, Taurine, M-Inositol, Alpha Tocopheryl Acetate, L-Carnitine, Mixed Tocopherols." I personally don't know what half of those things are and I certainly would not want to put them in my babies body if I didn't have to.

These simple or not so simple ingredients require the use of a lot of natural resources. The non-fat milk comes from cows. In order for those cows to produce that milk they need to eat. Raising these cows leads to deforestation and the use of other resources. On average, each cow requires thousands of square feet of grazing land, which leads to deforestation. The cows also require feed, and further land, water, and energy is used to produce it.

A second thing to note is that when you breastfeed the only container you need is your breasts. In order to formula feed you will need to use bottles and cans of formula. This leads to tons of plastic, paper, and metal for packaging, which produces waste, toxins, and landfill build-up.

According to an article published in Mothering Magazine, "Manufacturing of bottles, nipples, and other feeding equipment uses large amounts of plastic, rubber, silicon, and glass. Plastic feeding bottles, nipples, and pacifiers take 200 to 450 years to break down when disposed of in landfills sites, which are becoming increasingly scarce"

We also have to look at what it takes to transport the formula, their is the cost of fuel, the emissions into the earth. Breastfeeding does not require any of these things.

Taking a look at the information above if you can breastfeed, and believe me I know that there are instances when it is simply not possible, it is in the best interest of the earth that you do.