 The most common form of breast feeding is nursing breast to mouth with their infants nestled cozily in the mother`s arms. This position offers close physical contact and an emotional connection for mother and baby. However, if you are unable to directly nurse your baby for medical reasons like your own illness or may be your baby`s prematurity alternative methods of giving your child breast milk are available. A manual or electric breast pump may be used to express milk from your breasts and store it in the refrigerator or freezer for later use. Expressed milk can be fed to any baby whose mother is away at work, at school, shopping, or absent for other reasons. A premature baby may be fed expressed milk with a dropper or spoon. Your partner can also feed him with your expressed milk to share in the feeding process or give you some respite.
If you are not in a state to feed your own milk to your baby then there is the option of obtaining other mothers` processed, pasteurized breast milk that has been do-nated to milk banks in much the same way that blood is commonly donated. Donated breast milk does not provide full immunity against diseases in the environment, since it must be heat-treated to destroy any potentially dangerous bacteria, viruses, or other infectious particles, but it does provide some of the immune benefits and many of the nutrients that formula does not supply.
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