If you are a nursing mother or if you are a mother and being pregnant you have received samples of some products you may know a product called Promil, manufactured by Milte.
Promil is a food supplement based on natural extracts of Milk Thistle (Sylibum Marianum), whose objective is to act as a galactogogue, that is, to help breastfeeding mothers have more milk.
This product has been in the market for more than three years and, although I don't know what its success has been, I am aware that pediatricians, nurses and midwives have recommended it on occasion.
The problem is that It is a misleading product, because it is not proven to do anything, which can also be dangerous, if a mother's intention is to breastfeed her baby for quite some time.
Its effectiveness is not proven
If we go to the e-breastfeeding page to see what they can tell us about Promil, we see that there are two unreliable studies that give it a galactogogue effect:
Two works (one with cows and one with women), give it a galactogogue effect, but the methodology is defective in both cases.
In essence we could say that It is sold as a promise that mothers will have more milk by taking an envelope daily of a box in which 20 come, at the rate of about 10-12 euros, according to the pharmacy in which they buy it.
Why does a mother want to have more milk?
Then, seeing Promil's instructions, one wonders why does a mother want to have more milk if when everything goes well the amount of milk is enough for a baby. Moreover, if a mother has enough for her baby and for whatever reason she thinks she should have more, producing more could pose a danger to her health, because the breasts would start to engulf and the chances of mastitis would increase.
Then someone could still come and say, "Oh, well, Promil is doing very well for mastitis," because it turns out that, according to the manufacturer, the anti-inflammatory effect of Milk Thistle helps prevent and treat processes such as mastitis.
Why Promil is dangerous for babies and nursing mothers
Surely you will be wondering what danger a food supplement can have that does nothing. As well, the danger is that it does nothing and there are people who believe that it does something. This means that there are mothers who buy this product thinking that everything will be better. If it turns out that there is no problem with breastfeeding but that the low production is the result of feelings that the mother has, there will be no problem for taking Promil. If instead he has real problems, the baby is not sucking enough milk, is not gaining weight and the mother places her hopes on this product, without seeking professional help, breastfeeding will end badly, almost certainly and the baby maybe too.
For more INRI, if a mother has problems with breastfeeding, and despite taking Promil, or not taking it, go to a professional who believes in the product, perhaps instead of help you take envelopes that do nothing, believing that everything is solved both she and the professional.
That is, instead of inquiring and investigating about the possible causes of hypogalactia, about possible problems with the position or grip or about possible problems with the baby's health, which causes him not to gain enough weight (a urine infection , for example), many professionals saw the light when it appeared on the Promil market for a very simple reason: I don't need to know anything about breastfeeding. If a mother says that her baby is little fat, that she is hungry or that she thinks she has little milk, the Promil is sent and "ready."
Manufactured by Milte
When at the Avila breastfeeding congress I attended last April, someone asked how someone could make a product that does nothing for nursing mothers, the answer came quickly knowing that Promil is manufactured by Milte, a company specializing in children's nutrition.
Milte is the brand that manufactures the start and continuation formulas called Miltina, so while some people made a face of "I don't understand", many of us made our darkest conjectures.
If I basically made artificial milk for babies and saw that every day more mothers breastfeed, at the risk of losing potential buyers of my products, I would look for something that I could sell to these mothers too, to make sure that, or the nursing mothers would they buy something (the Promil), or those who don't breastfeed do it (artificial milk).
If I also managed to make people believe that the product for nursing mothers does something, without being truly true, I would get more bounce, more mothers failed in their attempt to breastfeed their babies and end up buying artificial milk.
But I say, this is what I would do if I had a multinational that makes baby formulas. Milte sure you have not made these reflections so macabre.
