Best Baby Beginnings

07/20/2025

Your milk contains phagocytes, white blood cells that pass through your baby’s gut wall and patrol around your baby’s bloodstream.

There, they detect, engulf and destroy harmful micro-organisms; bacteria, viruses, fungi, and foreign materials that aren’t supposed to be there, like dust particles or pigments, and also cancer cells, though these cells can sometimes adapt and evade detection.

Phagocytes also remove dead or dying cells that can cause inflammation and disease.

Once phagocytes have destroyed the harmful micro-organism, they retain harmless fragments of this pathogen on their surface, allowing another type of protective cell - the T cells - in your baby’s immune system to learn from them.

T cells learn to recognise the pathogens, developing your baby’s long term immunity.

It’s like a whole military operation going on, whilst we sit and feed our children like nothing appears to be happening at all.

We are all born with immature immune systems. Your milk not only helps your baby’s immune system to develop in a healthy way, it also helps to protect your baby from illness while this happens.

Our immune systems take around 6 years to fully develop, which is thought to be one of the reasons that natural term breastfeeding (allowing a child to stop breastfeeding in their own time without interrupting or replacing breastmilk) extends from anywhere between around 2 and 7 years old.

Some extra geekiness: The word phagocyte comes from the Greek ‘phagein’, ‘to eat’ or ‘devour’, and ‘-cyte’, a word-forming element used in modern science to mean "of a cell," from the Greek word kytos, meaning ‘a hollow’, ‘receptacle’, ‘basket’.

So Mama, are you remarkable, or are you really, really remarkable?



More science (ie information bout how incredible you are), support, and references at https://human-milk.com/pages/science-of-breastmilk

07/16/2025

😆💓😅💖

07/06/2025

Letting a baby cry it out might sound like tough love but science says it’s tougher on the baby than anyone else.

Research now shows that ignoring a crying infant or frequently leaving them to self-soothe without comfort can have real consequences not just emotionally, but neurologically. A large-scale Japanese study involving over 100,000 mother-child pairs found a clear link between chronic non-response during infancy and developmental delays. These included setbacks in communication, social interaction, motor coordination, and even problem-solving abilities.

But it doesn’t stop at developmental skills.

When babies cry for extended periods without comfort, their bodies release large amounts of cortisol, the primary stress hormone. And while short-term stress responses are natural, prolonged elevated cortisol levels can disrupt brain development, particularly in regions responsible for emotional regulation, memory, and attachment.

This early emotional stress may also lead to weaker caregiver bonds, and increases the risk of anxiety, aggression, and lower IQ later in life. The baby learns not just that their needs won’t be met but that the world may not be safe or responsive at all.

Comforting a crying baby isn’t about spoiling them it’s about building their brain, shaping secure attachment, and laying the groundwork for emotional resilience. Every time you respond with love, you’re not just calming a cry you’re wiring a healthier future.

06/19/2025

06/13/2025

"Loving you is not separate from the struggle for liberation. It is liberation itself." - Mahmoud Khalil

Ahead of Father's Day, Mahmoud is being held in ICE detention, 1,500 miles away from his newborn son. A few fathers joined us to share his letter to his son: http://lil.ms/ospu/8j5g3d

-ACLU

Activist Mahmoud Khalil was illegally arrested and detained in March for being an outspoken advocate for Palestinian rights at Columbia University. He has been held at a detention facility in Louisiana thousands of miles away from his family for over three months now. While detained, his wife Dr. No...

05/10/2025

05/05/2025

Sobering news.

For decades the NIH has led a public health campaign credited with saving thousands of babies from dying in their sleep. The administration's cuts come as sleep-related infant deaths have been rising.

04/11/2025

Me: “Pregnancy is so hard.”
Them: “Just wait ‘til they’re here!”

Me: “Having a newborn is exhausting.”
Them: “Just wait ‘til you have a toddler!”

Me: “Toddlers are wild. I’m struggling.”
Them: “Just wait ‘til they’re teenagers!”

Okay but… can we not play the “just wait” game every time a mom opens up?

Motherhood is already hard enough without being met with a warning label at every stage.
Instead of brushing off a mom’s struggle with a “just wait,” how about:
“I hear you.”
“You’re doing amazing.”
“This part is brutal, but you’re not alone.”

Because when I was drowning in sleepless nights, blowouts, tantrums, and all the tears (mine and theirs)…
I didn’t need a countdown to the next storm.
I needed someone to sit in the rain with me and remind me I’d make it through.

Validate her. Support her. She’s already carrying enough.

10/08/2024

From the mouth of babes…

08/26/2024

Best Baby Beginnings

08/07/2024

💟Besides being the first woman to qualify for Azerbaijan, she says instead of being uncomfortable during olympic training, Yaylogul felt she was fighting along WITH her baby!💟

Los Juegos Olímpicos nos están dejando grandes lecciones. Primero, nos sorprendió la esgrimista Nada Hafez y ahora Yaylagul Ramazanova (), arquera azerbaiyana, ha competido en París embarazada de 6 meses y medio.

Este es un acontecimiento histórico para la deportista de 34 años, quien además es la primera mujer de Azerbaiyán en clasificarse en tiro con arco. Yaylagul ha comentado: «Durante el entrenamiento para los Juegos Olímpicos no me sentí incómoda con mi embarazo. Al contrario, sentí que no estaba luchando sola, sino que luchaba junto con mi bebé».

¡Qué inspiración ver a mujeres rompiendo barreras y demostrando que no hay límites para alcanzar nuestros sueños!

💜

02/24/2024

We speak beyond words, through skin to skin. This is where the relationships that will last a lifetime begin.💟