Contradicition - cow milk based formula is ok, but cow milk is not?

Question

Can someone out there tell me why doctors say it is ok to give your baby cows milk based formulas, but you should not give your baby cows milk before they are at least 1 year old? Seems like a contradiction.

I'm not talking about SUBSTITUTING formula with cows milk (I breastfeed). I'm trying to understand why formula is considered safe, but cow milk isn't.

Answer 1

In addition to supplementation with vitamins and iron, the protein in cow milk based formula is modified. The modification makes it easier to digest.

Let's look at the issue historically. Until the late 1960s, infants were often started on cow milk around three months of age. This was increased to six months, then to one year.

One of the issues was cow milk protein intolerance. More than a few infants, especially those with a family history of food or other allergies, developed wheezing or eczema. A few developed chronic diarrhea or malabsorption. When the lining of the intestines were biopsied, patchy lesions of varying severity were often found. Other infants developed a protein losing enteropathy where small amounts of blood and protein entered the stool, resulting in anemia and low protein.

While the number of affected infants were relatively small, less than one percent, it was felt to be serious enough to recommend that infants remain on a cow milk protein modified formula for longer periods, up to a year.

At the same time, many mothers were ahead of science by promulgating the advantages of prolonged breast feeding.

Answer 2

Even the formula companies say that breastmilk is best. Just read the fine print in the advertisements. I'm on the Enfamil mailing list and they also positively speak of breastfeeding in the publications I get. There's even a whole section on it on the website: http://www.enfamil.com/app/iwp/Content3.do?dm=enf&id=-8974
Yet, the companies are smart. They know that people will choose formula because it's "convenient" or people will supplement formula and also nurse. (I don't care for the word "supplement" because it makes it sound as though it's just as good or helps nutrition with breastfeeding.) I have some free cans of formula that I do not want. Because in some cases it's better than nothing, I will donate them to a food pantry.

I figured that there was a lot of politics involved, people paying people off, etc. I've looked at the ingredients of formula and it's pretty scary. Not only is it processed powdered milk (in addition to the processing that milk has already gone through), but other stuff is added, including things like corn syrup solids. Yuck. As an adult, I do everything within my power to stay away from artificial junk, including things like corn syrup. I do not want to give it to my baby.

Also, cow's milk is intended for baby cows. The beautiful creature to whom I gave birth is a baby human. Therefore, it stands to reason that I give her milk not only intended for a baby human, but made specifically for her. Being that I'm relatively healthy (I eat whole foods, nothing artificial, I don't exercise and my "bad" cholesterol is a bit high, but the nurse did say that it might just be due to post-pregnancy stuff, as my daughter is only two and a half months old) I will happily breastfeed my child, the way it is intended.

Over the weekend my sister asked why I did not want to do formula. The time didn't seem right for a discussion, so I diverted her attention to her daughter. I'll pump, but I won't do formula. Just the word conjures things found in a chemistry lab, whether good or bad.

Answer 3

It is pretty basic, but I totally understand your confusion.

Cow's milk is not fortified with the extra nutrients that formula is. The formula is created to mimic human breast milk as closely as possible.

In addition, personally I think that cow's milk tastes better than formula and the child might not take to the formula if introduced to the cow's milk. You do not want the child to fill up on something that does not give them the most nutrient they need at a young age.

Once the child gets to a year they are beginning to get the needed nutrients from table food and less from the milk so the worry of not getting what they need lessens.

Hope that made sense.

Answer 4

God knows, really. It was not all that long ago that homemade cow's milk + sugar + water formula was common. Nestlé can blither and blather all it likes about nonsense like "comfort proteins," but.

"Formula is certainly theoretically more appropriate for babies than cow's milk. But, in fact, there are no clinical studies that show that there is any difference between babies fed cow's milk and those fed formula. Not one."

http://www.kellymom.com/newman/bf_and_guilt_01-00.html

Also, re one year, not if the baby happens to be Canadian. Why?

"The Canadian Paediatric Society says it’s fine to introduce cow’s milk between nine and 12 months of age. However, in the US and some other countries, the official advice is to wait for at least a year. Why are the guidelines different from those in Canada?

“The main concern is about iron deficiency, and that problem starts in the early months of a baby’s life,” explains Robert Issenman, chief of paediatric gastroenterology and nutrition at McMaster Children’s Hospital in Hamilton. “When babies under six months or so are fed regular cow’s milk, they have minute amounts of blood loss in the GI tract. This blood loss makes them likely to become anemic. By nine months, drinking regular cow’s milk no longer causes this bleeding.”

Anemia develops most often when parents who are not breastfeeding find formula too expensive, so they buy ordinary milk for their young baby.

“A recommendation that babies not drink cow’s milk until they are a year old won’t change what those families are doing, so it won’t solve the problem of anemia,” Issenman says. The advice will be followed by those families who are already breastfeeding or giving formula until their babies are nine months old — and for those babies, it will not make any difference in the rates of anemia.

This recommendation does help in the US, Issenman notes, because a government program provides subsidized formula for a year for babies who are not breastfed. This can be important because the subsidy isn’t enough to purchase all the formula a baby needs, and parents sometimes give regular cow’s milk when the formula runs out.

Why don’t we have a similar program in Canada? “We have a different philosophy here,” says Issenman. “The concern has been that if we offer free or subsidized formula, it might persuade women not to breastfeed, or to wean early.” A 2004 study in Pediatrics did find that program families were less likely to breastfeed than families with similar low incomes who didn’t sign up. More than half of the formula sold in the US is distributed through the program."

http://www.todaysparent.com/baby/foodnutrition/article.jsp?content=20051006_153604_6200

Answer 5

Formula is primarily based on politics. Doctors NEVER compared using regular whole fat milk with additives to formula, at least in none of the studies I saw. Basicially, they compared apples to oranges based on studies paid for by formula companies. At least with whole fat milk at the store, you can buy Bovine Growth Hormone free milk. Not so with formula.

Formula is simply what is leftover from cheesemaking. It makes more money for those companies because now they have a captive market for their waste product. Cheesemaking removes one protein. However, that protein is not a problem for MOST children. So, instead, we now have children who projectile vomit and it is thought to be normal.

Oh, and then, on top of ALL of that, many peds say cheese is just fine for an 8 month old. Umm...tell me, how is that possible if that other protein is so terrible? Just a lot of garbage in and garbage out.

The majority of parents are perfectly capable of putting measured drops into cow's milk to fortify cows milk. But that would take away from coffers of the formula companies, so of course, that is never offered. I know several women who quit feeding their kids formula and instead bought cows milk and added their own additives. Their kids quit having projectile vomiting. Amazing?

To the poster above: comfort proteins is just a marketing gizmo. It doesn't exist except in advertising.

Answer 6

The formula has added vitamins and other nutrients that the baby would not get from plain milk. The base is cow's milk proteins, and formulated for easy digestion.

Answer 7

I don't have any studies to cite, just my own opinion. I firmly believe it's about money. Nestle and the drug companies are making tons of money on formula. Dairy farmers don't care, because either way, they get a cut of artificial infant food.

RE: additional details. I know what you mean. It's a very good question. One that Nestle spent lots of advertising money to answer! After all, Nestle knows your baby best! Ha!

Answer 8

I would agree with the person who talked about the making of your own formula. Makes sense because not EVERYONE had a nurse maid, nor was able to nurse all of the babies.

But this is exactly why I nursed...no politics involved with that one!