by Amy Weekley

Created on: February 09, 2007   Last Updated: April 25, 2007

Breastmilk provides the perfect infant nutrition. It is specifically tailored to meet the nutritional needs of a human baby, and changes in composition as the baby grows to meet the child's changing needs. Breastmilk lacks nothing. It provides enough calories to support a baby's rapid growth and contains just the right amounts of all essential vitamins and minerals needed for proper brain and body function, including iron. If the mother is not malnourished, an exclusively breastfed baby will not need artificial vitamin supplements for optimal health - in fact, these supplements can sometimes cause more harm than good.

Some doctors will recommend that a breastfed baby be given iron supplements or fluoride drops or another vitamin supplement. While well-meaning, these doctors are misinformed. Babies thrived for thousands of years before the invention of fluoride drops and iron supplements, with good reason - breastmilk is optimal by itself, nothing need be added. (You've seen the pasta sauce commercial that says, "All you need to add is nothing." It's the same with breastmilk.) Yes, doctors have been to medical school, but in American medical schools, breastfeeding is only a very small portion of the training, and is sometimes left to a brief mention in a textbook: "Breastfeeding is best." The nutritional makeup of breastmilk, and its many benefits, are not discussed at length in most American medical schools.

Infant formula contains synthetic replicas of some of the nutrients found in breastmilk. However, there are numerous problems with this. Because breastmilk is so complex, there are many ingredients that cannot yet be replicated in a lab, and it is estimated that there are literally hundreds of other ingredients in breastmilk that haven't even been discovered yet. As such, formula is severely lacking - it cannot provide adequate infant nutrition. In addition, many of the ingredients in formula, while similar to those in breastmilk, are actually poor replicas of the real thing, and as such are not as readily absorbed and utilized by the baby's body. For example, the iron found in infant formula is not easily absorbed. This causes two problems: the baby can become anemic from lack of iron absorbed into the bloodstream, and all that extra unabsorbed iron can lay in the intestines, causing constipation. On the other hand, the iron in breastmilk is specially designed to be easily absorbed by the baby's system, preventing both anemia and constipation.

In short, breastmilk is not simply "better" for your baby... it is the absolute standard of infant nutrition. Anything else is substandard, and therefore not adequate for optimal infant health and growth.

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