Benefits of Breast Milk and Breastfeeding

• The first feed helps to stabilize baby's blood sugars and protect baby's gut. As you feed, the hormone oxytocin will help your uterus regain its tone after birth. This process also protects against excessive bleeding as you recover from childbirth. You may feel mild menstrual-like cramps while your uterus shrinks.
• During your baby's first 24 hours, your baby might wet his nappy only once or twice. This is because the colostrum you produce is highly digestible and perfect nutrition for your baby, so there's not much left to eliminate. The colostrum also provide natural immunity from infection.
• Constipation is very rare in breastfed babies. So other breastfed babies may pass several per day. 
• If you have premature babies and exclusively breastfeeding for at least a month these will help your baby to lower the risk factors for heart disease in later life and will protect your baby against food allergy at 3 years of age, and also against respiratory allergy at 17 years of age.
• Newborns who are not breastfed are much more likely to get sick or be hospitalized, and have many more digestive problems than breastfed babies. Also breastfeeding for 6 weeks means that your child now has less risk of chest infections up to 7 years old. 
• By exclusively breastfeeding for at least two month it helps your baby to enhance his antibodies and it will strength the effectiveness of the any vaccine. Nursing during the vaccination process will also offer your baby a unique level of pain relief.
• In 3 months of exclusively breastfeed your baby may go for ten or twelve days without pooping. In this stage your milk is currently providing 535 calories, 6.8g of protein and 37g fat for your baby per day! You will also notice that your baby has nocturnal sleep this is because of tryptophan in breast milk which acts as a regulator. By this time you have given your baby a 27% reduction in the risk of asthma if you have no family history of asthma and a 40% reduction if you have a family history and 19-27 reduction in incidence of childhood Type 1 Diabetes. Your baby will also enhanced development in key parts of the brain compared to other children who were fed formula or a combination of formula and breast milk.
• For 4 months of exclusively breast feeding you already have given your baby strong protection against ear infection and respiratory tract disease for a whole year. You also have reduced your baby's risk of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). Your baby will also have a lower risk of developing eczema and asthma
• By breastfeeding for at least 6 months you already have protected your baby's intestinal tract so that it can now begin to produce antibodies. These antibodies coat the intestines and protect him from foreign proteins and allergens. You have also  given your baby 19% decrease in risk of childhood acute lymphocytic leukemia and a 15% decrease in the risk of acute myelogenous leukemia. Your baby is ready to accept range of solid foods by these stage because breast milk exposes babies to the flavors of their mothers' diets and serves as a flavor bridge between a milk-based diet and more adult-like diet. 
• Babies breastfed for between seven and nine months have higher intelligence than those breastfed for less than seven months
• As a result of receiving your breast milk for at least a year your child is more likely to display better social adjustment when they begin school. You also have given your child a lower risk of becoming overweight in later life and lower risk factors for heart disease as an adult. 

Source:

• "Reasons to Be Happy." Reasons to Be Happy (n.d.): n. pag. Reason to Be Proud Final Without Bleed
• "Timeline of a Breastfed Baby." The Alpha Parent.