"Suck on This" (from The Ecologist)

[Artemnesia]

It's a GREAT article about breastfeeding. Longish but well worth the read.

Here's the intro as a teaser to try to get you to actually click the link and read it...

The human species has been breastfeeding for nearly half a million years. It’s only in the last 60 years that we have begun to give babies the highly processed convenience food called ‘formula’. The health consequences - twice the risk of dying in the first six weeks of life, five times the risk of gastroenteritis, twice the risk of developing eczema and diabetes and up to eight times the risk of developing lymphatic cancer – are staggering.

read more of Suck on This.

[Arwyn]

In the process of reading it, and I like it so far, but this bugs me:

Milk fat, which is not easily absorbed by the human body, particularly one with an immature digestive system, is removed and substituted with vegetable, animal or mineral fats.

I really, really wish the author had specified bovine milk fat. Human milk fat is perfectly digestable by human babies.

[MaryJaneLouise]

Originally Posted by Arwyn

In the process of reading it, and I like it so far, but this bugs me:

I really, really wish the author had specified bovine milk fat. Human milk fat is perfectly digestable by human babies.

yes, the assumption that "milk" is always bovine milk

[frontierpsych]

Very interesting so far. I' about halfway through, will have to finish the other half later. This is definitely a great article to save for anyone unsupportive of breastfeeding!

[mariag]

thanks - great article i wish more people would read it

[LeslieB]

I've had this article saved since it was first published. I always send it to friends who are pregnant for the first time. Such a great article!

[JustJamie]

Originally Posted by MaryJaneLouise

yes, the assumption that "milk" is always bovine milk

I think if you read the entire paragraph that contains that particular sentence, the bovine is inferred.

Most commercial formulas are based on cow’s milk. But before a baby candrink cow’s milk in the form of infant formula, it needs to be severely modified. The protein and mineral content must be reduced and the carbohydrate content increased, usually by adding sugar. Milk
fat, which is not easily absorbed by the human body, particularly one with an immature digestive system, is removed and substituted with vegetable, animal or mineral fats.

Most GOOD authors don't start talking about one thing and then switching to another in the same paragraph. If I write one sentence about sea salt, and in the next sentence in the same paragraph, only refer to it as salt, the reader can safely infer that I'm still talking about sea salt. Just as an example.

[Artemnesia]

Actually there was one other small portion that bugged me for a similar reason...

Many formulas are also highly sweetened. While most infant formulas
do not contain sugar in the form of sucrose, they can contain high levels of other types of sugar such as lactose (milk sugar), fructose (fruit sugar), glucose (also known as dextrose, a simple sugar found
in plants) and maltodextrose (malt sugar).

One of the (many) problems with artificial baby milk is that it doesn't have enough lactose. Human milk has the highest milk-sugar (lactose) content of any of the animal milks, which is why it tastes super sweet. The amount of lactose in the milk corresponds to the animal's brain size and this is no coincidence because lactose is necessary for proper brain growth and development. Cow's milk doesn't have enough of this sugar, so other types of sugars are added. Not good!!!! And disturbingly enough, some kinds have no lactose at all, like soy formulas. (By the way-- Virtually NO babies are lactose intolerant-- that's an adult condition-- ONLY babies who have a very serious metabolic condition called classic galactosemia should avoid lactose-- yet you will see cow's milk formulas with ALL the lactose removed which are marketed to parents of colicky kids. :

But anyway, picky technical stuff aside, I think this article is what started changing me from being an almost apologetic breastfeeder who felt the need to compulsively validate formula and bottle-feeding every time I said something positive about breastfeeding into a person who thinks that breastfeeding is a human rights issue. After reading this article I then read "Milk, Money, and Madness." That book really nails it all down. There's little left to argue about if half of what's in that book is true (and I think in fact all of it is probably true.)