There seems to be little debate these days on whether formula milk is better than breast milk – unless you listen to the sellers of such things of course.
I would like to explain a little about why this is. If the biology doesn’t make sense to you, you can read about such things in greater context on the article pages on my website – highlighted as we go along.
The first, and most obvious thing to grasp is that cow’s milk is made for calves. And they are a pretty different animal – even on the outside, but go inside, and you find massive evolutionary specialization concerning the stomach, gut and bowel – obviously driven by millions of years of them gorging on grass (a very tough material because of its high cellulose content), and us specializing on fruit and leaves (in our transition into the trees for 120 million years).
Nutritional Architecture
The nature of our bodies and history has given us a propensity for digesting and assimilating fairly light materials.
This shows up as the most favored flavors in children – IE: Sugars. They don’t crave meat, fats, spicy foods, or starches. Rare is the child that will take a steak instead of sweets. Our use of refined sugars has led this behaviour to be associated with tooth decay, obesity and diabetes, but it does point to the evolutionary urge to consume sugars. Which should be fruit rather than sweets. And the body is very good at it.
Thus breast milk is accommodating to this need.
Human milk is high in sugar as fuel (7%), moderate in appropriate essential fatty acids specific to growing the brain (3.8%), and low in proteins (1.8%).
Cow’s milk is the reverse; half in sugar (3.8%). Moderate in fats (3.8%), and triple the protein (3.3%)
Incidentally, at this point it is worth considering our attention to proteins regarding growth – something that alternatives to cow’s milk is often criticized as being low in. But if it was that important, wouldn’t breast milk be rich in it ?
Also, consider the size and agility of a cow (750Kg and sedentary) in comparison to that of a higher ape (100Kg and mobile), and you might expect the nutrients supplied to build one might be hugely different – and they are – HUGELY.
A calf’s stomach is waiting for cow’s milk. It has all the enzymes and masticating equipment to take full advantage of them, in an 100 million year communion between cow and calf. And a human stomach similarly is primed for expecting human milk. And it is the wild difference between the two stomachs and milks that is the inherant problem.
More importantly, it is how these nutrients are transported.
A Formula for Disaster
A human stomach exudes masses of powerful acids in order to digest proteins. But much of the immunological information coming from the mother is held in a proteinous form, so for around the first six months of life, the infant stomach does not secrete these acids – thus preserving the integrity of the immunological materials which develop the baby’s defenses.And this is expressed in major immune flaws in later life without them – a well known and documented reality in our current generation (as the 1950-80s saw the erroneous rise of formula milk over breast milk).
Furthermore, the bacteria that would naturally be transmitted from mother to baby simply doesn’t occur, leading to all manner of detrimental fermentation, often expressed immediately as Colic, and then later on as bowel disorders like IBS & Crohn’s, etc – again, much documentation on those connections coming to light these days.
Moreover, the masses of sugars that are expected by the baby to fuel the onward development of all the systems, are mostly missing in cow’s milk, and sugar management problems are set up for life.
All manner of subtleties are being found out all the time, such as Transfer Factors – hugely important tweakings for hormonal and immunological routines within the infant being influenced by the mother’s ongoing environment.
Then there are the emotional connections between mother and baby. The simultaneous secretion of bonding neurotransmitters like Oxytocin & Dopamine, that should form the ongoing security and well-being of the baby’s psyche, through the affection, contact and proximity of mother at all times. Multiply this by putting the baby in a cot in another room for terrifying amounts of time (while the baby arrives expecting 24/7 contact and protection from its guardians), and you can start to see why inherent insecurity is the norm in modern humans. No animal (or even tribal humans) would dream of doing this, yet we expect the baby to be unaffected.
We won’t even go into the less defined problems associated with growth hormones injected into cattle to stimulate additional milk production, or the nutritional withering of grain-fed rather than grass-fed cows, or the biocides used in the grain industry to make that profitable.
So, we can see, looking biologically, or psychologically, there is no advantage to the bottle, aside from the convenience for the modern mother to break the baby’s need for contact, and the profitability of the suppliers of such products.
Last Chance Alternatives
There are of course circumstances under which a baby cannot be breastfed. And this is where it becomes advantageous to describe the options to breast milk.
It has to be said here though, that it is possible to get lactation to happen in the female breast through sufficient herb use and physio therapy, even months after birth. Even in men, for that matter.
So, even if the baby will not latch initially, or some trauma has ceased breast milk, there is still hope, but the longer it is left, the more work there is to do to resurrect flow. So if this is not an option, what is the best substitute for breast milk?
While cows are a hugely different animal to humans, because of their specialization on grass, goats and sheep are naturally forest dwellers (we keep them in fields for our own convenience), and as omnivores, their intestinal track is fairly similar to ours in its capabilities – and therefore the nutritional spectrum of the milk of the mother. This makes either of them a far easier choice for the baby to digest and gain nutrition from.
On goat’s or sheep’s milk there is significantly less of the colic expected from feeding on cow’s milk. Because the colic is due to the lack of digestion of the proteins in the milk (lack of digestive acids in stomach, and lack of lacto-bacteria in intestines), which then ferment, and give off toxic gasses. As this is happening in the upper intestine, much of the gas will move fluids upward rather than down . This exposes the stomach wall to the highly alkaline nature of intestinal fluids, which burns, and the infant will protest accordingly. Remember, it is not a stomach acid problem – there is none being produced. It is a milk problem.
If babies scream it is because something is wrong.
Milk Solutions
Liquid goat and sheep milk are best, but their formula milk are next in line.
Even if the formula being used is from goats or sheep, the heating processes involved will have removed the bacterial and immunological influences, so supplementation with a decent (broad spectrum) probiotic then becomes highly advisable, and this usually settles any colic within a week or two (once the bacteria have implanted and become dominant – the earlier this therapy is started, the easier the transition).
Mother Solutions
If breastfeeding has not happened, then there will be a major emotional effect on the mother also.
Without the constant and ongoing feedback from the stimulation of nipples and lactation glands, that high-end neuro-chemistry will not occur, and the body starts to respond as if the baby has been lost. Post-partum depression is much higher in non-breastfeeding mothers for this reason.
And on top of that, the nutritional elements that have made up the baby will start to show up as deficiencies in the mother. She has just built an entire brain – one of the most nutritionally complex and exhaustive achievements in nature, and unless she was well-nourished, then they will have been stripped from her own system, as the baby begins to take priority over nutrients. These need to be replaced.
Omega oils from linseed (not fish), vitamins and minerals, and sugars, are all now imperatives… Otherwise, even breast feeding mothers can slip into the depression that occurs from this flaw in our lifestyles.
For more information on all these subjects, please follow the links from the bottom of this page to all the other articles
