For those of you with a baby, surely you want to give the best as parents. Especially for women, being able to give exclusive breastfeeding is the best thing a mother can give to her child. Besides being highly nutritious, breast milk is also known to help build the baby's immune system.
Various methods are used by the mother so that she can breastfeed her child well, starting from maintaining a good diet to taking supplements to increase breast milk. In addition to food intake, physical and psychological factors can also affect your milk. As we know, high stress level is one of the causes of low supply of breast milk, due to hormonal imbalance in the body. Meanwhile, physical activity is known to have a positive impact on your breast milk supply.
According to the results of a recent study conducted by Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center, researchers found that exercise can help increase the benefits of breast milk for babies. You don’t need to exercise heavily; these benefits can also be obtained by undergoing light or moderate exercise. In the study, it was found that moderate exercise during pregnancy can increase compound 3'-Sialyllactose (3SL), which can help reduce the risk of health problems in infants, such as diabetes, obesity, and heart disease.
Researchers found that women who liked to exercise during pregnancy had a higher number of 3SL compared to those who did not exercise. 3SL is an oligosaccharide contained in either breast milk or cow's milk. These compounds are known to have an important role in maintaining overall infant health. The content of 3SL in milk can provide immunoprotective effects against pathogens in newborns. Recently 3SL has also been shown to inhibit HIV-1 virus infection.
Text by Anggie Triana
Stock photos from Pixabay
Source(s):
- Harris, J.E., Pinckard, K.M., Wright, K.R., et al (2020). Exercise-induced ‘sialyllactose in breast milk is a critical mediator to improve metabolic health and cardiac functions in mouse offspring. Nature Metabolism, DOI: 10.1038 / s42255-020-0223-8.
- Science Daily - Study finds exercise increases the benefits of breast milk for babies (2020). https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200629120220.htm, 30 June 2020.