Is breastfeeding an infant more "healthy" than using expressed milk?
Is breastfeeding an infant more healthy than using expressed milk? With healthy I mean the relative health of mother and child, and with expressed milk I mean milk extracted from the breasts using breast-pumps.
I assume it is more safe to use breast-pumps, since one can sanitize pumps with more intense chemical agents than one would use on a breast. But then again, how intense would cleaning for a breast even need to be? Or I guess one could also argue that the more times some device is touched, the more it can be contaminated, so then the shortest route, breast to mouth, would be better than breast to pump to bottle to mouth.
Or conversely, pro breastfeeding, would the child have a better chance to "bond" with the mother when being breastfed? This might be psychological territory, though.
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Hygiene
Several points to address here:
one can sanitize pumps with more intense chemical agents than one
would use on a breast
Breasts, nipples of a typical-healthy-relatively-clean mother are perfectly safe for a child. A breast can be "dirty", just as a bottle can be either not cleaned well enough or cleaned very well but with some of the chemistry involved staying there. In general: no difference in hygiene assuming that proper hygiene is maintained.
the more times some device is touched, the more it can be contaminated
properly cleaned device will not be harmful and will not make the milk go bad.
would the child have a better chance to "bond" with the mother when being breastfed?
Mother could bond with the child more I guess. The child... Not necessarily. Notice that a newborn sees little, it feels warmth, touch and smell though, and it is comforting. So assuming that the baby is held in mother's/father's arms there'll be little difference in comfort and bonding for the child.
Quality of milk
An important factor of your considerations should be the quality of milk the baby drinks. Most often the milk from the breastpump goes to a fridge or feezer to be used later on. After that it will still be a very good source of nutrition, however, with time and improper storing, it may lose some of its properties, especially antibodies and fat
Amount of milk
Some pumps and some women may experience a decrease of milk production when using pumps. In that case a woman should try to feed the baby more straight from the breast, thus increasing the milk production.
Expressed milk is the next best alternative only when breastfeeding is not possible.
When you breastfeed directly, the physical contact with your baby helps your body to create antibodies to germs in his environment, your body creates antibodies in response to cues from the baby's saliva and other secretions.
When breastfeeding directly, your body will produce more milk in response to the baby's demand, replaces the milk your baby removes from the breast; it is not possible with expressing milk.
For expressed milk you need to wash breast pump and bottle parts which involves chemicals - that is not safe for babies. So breast-mouth is better than breast to pump to bottle to mouth.
Breastfeeding directly increases the mother-baby bonding.
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