[Chaja]

I was w/ my IL's this weekend and b/c I was bf'ing, my dh's Aunt (the oldest) was telling me about what they used to feed my dh and his cousin. She said they fed them "formula" they made by by diluting Carnation evaporated milk and adding a little light Karo syrup to keep th bowels moving!!

this was in '69 through early 70's.

Don't get te wrong idea - my IL's are GREAT and the other 2 younger Aunt's said they did,'t use that b/c they bf'ed their kids.

Anyway - I think this sounds like a weird thing to feed a baby - and I thought it would be fun to see if anyone else has heard of feeding babies such weird stuff - which I know (at least in my Aunt IL's case) they really thought was better than breastmilk.

 

[MelMel]

my MIL (who bf my dh and his brother till they were 4 and 5) has a 'how to' baby book from the 60's, and it has that recipe for formula in it. evaporated milk and corn syrup, and something else...i dont remember what???

I know people always say 'i was given that and i am fine'...but HOW???? I dont understand how a human infant can thrive and develop somewhat functionablely on canned evaporated cows milk and corn syrup....you would really think some things would not develop as they should....? but the babies were given that for decades.

 

[Angie676]

This was during the early 70's: A friend of mine bf'ed her first daughter for about 6 weeks, and then tried all sorts of formula's. She says that the only thing her daughter tolerated was canned milk (I think she used sweetened condensed). Her second daughter was bf for 13 months.

The worst thing is, she actually encourages her daughters not to bf because her bf daughter has more health problems then the canned-milk fed daughter!

I'm reading Politics of Breastfeeding and it says (I'm VERY roughly paraphrasing) that not until the 70's was Nestle actually prohibited from putting infant-feeding instructions on their Sweetened Condensed Milk tins. They successfully protested against putting a warning, "Innapropriate for infants" on the tins, saying that it wasn't necessary because most parents knew better...

Obviously not

 

[Momtwice]

Obviously not. Around '59 or '60 my mom bought a Dr. Spock book. It was in many, many homes. It had the recipe for formula, canned milk and corn syrup. NOTHING else. No vitamins, NOTHING. This was what MOST moms of that era fed their babies. BF was very rare.

 

[Chaja]

Wow!!!

I thought it was some weird thing that his family did!!!! I've already apologized to my dh for assuming his family was just nuts. Although I feel sorry gor his cousin who his Aunt said that the "formula never really agreed w/ and who would just spew it out of his mouth sometimes. He probably couldn't handle the dairy. I know dairy in my diet bothers my ds (so I've cut it out).

 

[BowenTherapist]

my friends husband was given coca cola instead of canned milk, since he couldn't tolerate that

this was what his moms ped told her to do! the doc said that it had everything he needed in it

 

[kama'aina mama]

Yeah, that was pretty standard. And the PR glut that fools people into feeding their babies crap isn't new either. I was talking with a woman from my church who is in her 60's, so raised her kids around that time. She said, "My husband wouldn't let me breastfeed. He heard all this great stuff about how these new formulas were better for the baby. Of cousre we couldn't really afford that expensive stuff, so we just ended up with the standard canned milk and Karo syrup."

 

[Meiri]

Let's think about this for a minute.

They thought formula was better, so they Didn't buy formula and instead fed baby this other homemade stuff.

:

I guess our school's aren't going downhill after all. IF that was the level of logical thinking used by the average person back then, the schools never reached the hill to begin going down!

 

[mangogirll]

I am from an eastern european country, and the common thing to feed babies there, was plain yogurt diluted with water. I know that yogurt is healthy and all but it does not have any vitamins. Its all crazy, but still better than coca cola, like someone mentioned above . How is that person alive, I can not think of anything more poisonous than coke!!!!!

 

[abigailvr]

The scary thing is that I know someone TODAY who gave her baby karo syrup diluted with water because she said he was constipated. I think the baby was getting all breastmilk - hers and donated milk from a friend.

 

[PurplePixiePooh]

When I lost my milk the baby got constipated and the pediatrician told me to put karo syrup in his bottle.

It is commonly adivised here for constipation.

 

[Very Snoofly]

According to her memoirs, my great-grandmother gave her youngest (of 6) child Pet Milk (I think that's evaporated milk?); she almost died of septicemia after his birth and then had mastitis and rheumatic fever. This was in the 20's; she breastfed her other kids. This particular baby was, in her words, "puny" (oh, ya think?) and for the rest of her days she refused to use Pet Milk in recipes because of how sick it made her baby.

My husband and his sister were both put on 2% cow's milk starting when they were three weeks old. My MIL said they couldn't tolerate formula. They both have pretty bad allergies and migraines and are both overweight. Coincidence? Hmmm....

 

[AmyG]

I had heard the evaporated milk thing before, but I heard a new one a few days ago. My sister was visiting with some of her older IL's from out of town. (I think they're probably in their 70s or 80s.) They were just scandalized that she isn't feeding her 8 month old baby buttermilk because it has enzymes in it that he apparently HAS to have.

: She said that in order to get them off her back about her own baby, she told them that my 9 month old is still exclusively breastfed and doesn't eat any solids.

Apparently that got them very upset. They wanted to know what would happen if I died, and she told them that she would just nurse my baby.

 

[Meiri]

Quote:

Apparently that got them very upset. They wanted to know what would happen if I died, and she told them that she would just nurse my baby.

Good for her!!! That is a beautiful gesture, though I sincerely hope she never has to follow through with it.

I told my nursing-her-almost-one-year-old sister the other day that if she's ever hassled for continuing to nurse she is to feel free to hold me up as an example of truly longterm nursing. I figure when the hassler, so far there have been none, hears that DS weaned at 5 and that DD is still nursing at 4, K's nursing a one year old will look just as normal as it truly is even to the ignorant.

 

[abigailvr]

Quote:

Originally posted by AmyG They wanted to know what would happen if I died, and she told them that she would just nurse my baby.

How sweet of your sister!

That is my least favorite argument against exclusive BF, I think. Would anyone say that the baby shouldn't get too attached to mom emotionally, in case she dies? It's just silly, IMHO.

(Editted because I can't spell!

)

 

[pumpkinhead]

I actually had a relative ask me that!

Quote:

Originally posted by AmyG They wanted to know what would happen if I died, and she told them that she would just nurse my baby.

I told her that I had enuf EBM in the freezer to last a month, which was plenty of time to find an alternative method to feed DS. THis was true...had oversupply issues

My husband (age 28) was fed carnation evaporated milk, water and corn syrup. His mom breast fed his sister and brother. You should see the difference in 'em! He's tall and SKINNY and they're both heavier built. He has lots of stomach and digestive probs as well while they can eat rocks.

 

[Justice2]

When Kaeleb was about 3 months old I went to see my uncle. He has a daughter that was 8 months old at the time. I was nursing Kaeleb every chance I could shove a boob into his mouth, but wasn't up to full supply so I had to supplement with formula. Well, this man saw me make Kaeleb a bottle and asked me why I didn't add cereal to it. I told him that I wasn't going to feed my child cereal out of a bottle. Then he starts on breastfeeding and how I am doing my child a disservice by not having him on solids yet (at 3 months

). He then fixes his 8 month old daughter a bottle of Whole A&D milk, with about 3 inches of cereal in it and then adds probably 1/8 of a cup of Karo Suryp. I told him that when he could show me any medical evidence that the crap he was feeding his baby was better than breastmilk (or even formula, for that matter) then he could 'counsil' me on what to feed my child.

 

[girliemama]

Surprise! Some still do! My daughter was born in 98 and some of the moms on the AOL board I was on thought this recipe was fabulous because it was cheaper than formula. Of course, they had the brains of triscuits, but yes, it's still around.

 

[kofduke]

Quote:

Originally posted by BowenTherapist my friends husband was given coca cola instead of canned milk, since he couldn't tolerate that this was what his moms ped told her to do! the doc said that it had everything he needed in it

Kind of like many dr.'s today say that formula has everything the baby needs in it?

 

[menudo]

My friend s son was very premature. She pumped early on. Anyway, he ended up on formula but before a year her Doctors had her making the nipple hole wider and adding karo syrup and rice cereal to cure his reflux. He is just 6 years old now. And these were the "best Docs in town"... SCARY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!