Mixing Breast Milk & Formula in the same bottle....

[3boys3girls]

I won't get into all the details, but to sum it up I have a friend who nursed her baby for a couple weeks with a lot of difficulty. She then decided to "exclusively" pump and feed him BM from a bottle. This worked for a while, until her supply dropped. Baby is now 5m old. She told me she his bottles now contain about a 50/50 mix of formula and BM. My question is what does formula "do" to breast milk. Does it cancel, so to speak, the immune or other nutritional benefits of breast milk? Please don't take my question the wrong way, I want to clarify that i'm not being critical of chosing to give one's child formula, though I'm an avid supporter of breastfeeding. Personally, when I think of supplementing with formula (something I've not done) I imagine giving sep. bottles, one of BM, one of formula, not mixing the 2.
Thanks in advance for any info, opinions, facts.....

[Whistler]

Cancel benefits? Uhm, no. Formula doesn't "do anything" to breastmilk.

Any breastmilk the baby is getting is good. I'd just gently encourage your friend to give as much breastmilk as she can. Maybe she is doing her best.

ETA: She probably doesn't want to upset his system by switching to an entire bottle of different stuff all the time. Maybe he does better with it mixed. I really wouldn't worry about it if I were you.

[tessie]

I would have thought it would be better to give the bm first so there isn't any waste. I'm sure I read that you're not supposed to mix them but I've no idea why not, definitely not because formula cancels out the bm.

[aztraea]

I looked into this for a friend a while back and didn't come across anything that said NOT to do it. I agree with pp, though, that I'd worry about waste. Can she save the pumped BM until she has enough for a full bottle and then alternate BM and formula? Regardless, should be fine!

[EmilyG]

i don't think the formula will hurt the breastmilk in any way, the only reason I've ever heard fornot mixing the two was you can save leftover breastmilk from a bottle feeding and give it again later, with formula you have to toss anything left over within an hour, so there is potentially wasted breastmilk with mixing. Baby should be fine though!

[zinemama]

It's totally fine. Good for her.

[3boys3girls]

thanks for the answers.... I'm not really worried about it, and I wasn't exactly sure how to ask the question. It was just something that crossed my mind. I found out tonight after my first post that my friend took her baby to the ER on Friday evening, and he has RSV. I had just talked with her on Friday morning and she didn't say anything about him being ill.... they were not at Church today so I called. Yes, I'm thrilled that she's giving her baby breast milk!

[JessicaS]

Is she adding water and formula or just the formula powder?

Unless her baby has health issues she shouldn't add just powder to the breastmilk. That might make him constipated. Otherwise, she is giving some breastmilk, that is good.

[3boys3girls]

OP here, just wanted to update that my friend recently told me she no longer pumps b/c she wasn 't getting any breastmilk, only an ounce per pumpong session. Baby is on straight formula. I'm glad he did get BM for some time & I'm glad his mama made an honest effort.