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11 - Hormone release

Breastfeeding releases oxytocin and prolactin, hormones that relax the mother and make her feel more nurturing toward her baby. Breastfeeding soon after giving birth increases the mother's oxytocin levels, making her uterus contract more quickly and reducing bleeding. Oxytocin is similar to pitocin, a synthetic hormone used to make the uterus contract.

10 - Bonding

The hormones released during breastfeeding strengthen the maternal bond. Teaching partners how to manage common difficulties is associated with higher breastfeeding rates. Support for a mother while breastfeeding can assist in familial bonds and help build a paternal bond between father and child.

If the mother is away, an alternative caregiver may be able to feed the baby with expressed breast milk. The various breast pumps available for sale and rent help working mothers to feed their babies breast milk for as long as they want. To be successful, the mother must produce and store enough milk to feed the child for the time she is away, and the feeding caregiver must be comfortable in handling breast milk.

Breastfeeding is a cost effective way of feeding an infant, and provides the best nourishment for a child at a small nutrient cost to the mother. Frequent and exclusive breastfeeding can delay the return of fertility through lactational amenorrhea, though breastfeeding is at best an imperfect means of birth control. During breastfeeding beneficial hormones are released into the mother's body.[12] and the maternal bond can be strengthened. Breastfeeding is possible throughout pregnancy, but generally milk production will be reduced at some point.

9. Long-term health effects

Breastfeeding mothers have less risk of endometrial, and ovarian cancer, and osteoporosis, and breast cancer.

Mothers who breastfeed longer than eight months also benefit from bone re-mineralisation and breastfeeding diabetic mothers require less insulin. Breastfeeding helps stabilize maternal endometriosis, reduces the risk of post-partum bleeding and benefits the insulin levels for mothers with polycystic ovary syndrome.

Women who breast feed for longer have less chance of getting rheumatoid arthritis, a Malmo University study published online ahead of print in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases suggested (See Women Who Breast Feed for More than a Year Halve Their Risk of Rheumatoid Arthritis). The study also found that taking oral contraceptives, which are suspected to protect against the disease because they contain hormones that are raised in pregnancy, did not have the same effect. Simply having children but not breast feeding also did not seem to be protective.

I remember very well when I heard the song for the first time: during the movie Barry Lyndon, directed by Stanley Kubric. The music gripped me by the throath and brought tears to my eyes. A wonderful, powerful piece of music called Sarabande by Georg Frideric Handel

Stanley Kubrick and Brian De Palma prominently featured a sarabande by George Frideric Handel in the soundtracks to their films Barry Lyndon and Redacted respectively. Handel composed this sarabande as the third movement (with two variations) in his Keyboard Suite in D minor, HWV 448, HG II/ii/4, for solo harpsichord. In direct reference to Barry Lyndon, Michael Winterbottom included this sarabande in A Cock and Bull Story in a new arrangement by Michael Nyman.

It also made an appearance on the 2008 HBO Series John Adams, about the life of the second president of the United States. It appeared in episode 4, when Adams (Paul Giamatti) meets King George III (played by Tom Hollander) while serving as Minister to Great Britain.

The Levi's campaign "Freedom to Move" used a different arrangement of the sarabanade to acommpany it's titular jeans' surreal commercial

8. Possible protection from sudden infant death syndrome

Breastfed babies have better arousal from sleep. This may reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome.

Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is a syndrome marked by the symptoms of sudden and unexplained death of an apparently healthy infant aged one month to one year. The term cot death is often used in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, while crib death is sometimes used in North America.