Two days ago we started talking about dairy and cow's milk derivatives in our “Special Infant Feeding” and the first entry was for the first derivative of cow's milk that some children take: artificial milk
To talk about her, I wanted to focus on health and, to do so, I started trying the inconvenience of feeding a baby with artificial milk. Today, with this post, we continue with the topic.
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome
There are several known factors that increase the risk of sudden infant death, such as sleeping in the prone position (face down), that one of the parents is a smoker, that there is a high ambient temperature, etc. and apparently, the type of food also has to do.
Comparing babies who drink artificial milk with babies who drink breast milk exclusively for 8-11 weeks, the former have a 2.8 times greater risk of suffering from SIDS.
If they are compared again, but this time with babies who drink breast milk up to 12-15 months, those who take LA have a 4.6 times higher risk.
The explanation for this phenomenon could be due to the alteration that artificial milk produces on sleep. It has been observed that babies who take LA tend to have a deeper sleep and wake up less times at night than babies who breastfeed.
If we look at the sleep patterns of older people (grandparents), it is observed that they barely get into deep sleep phases, wake up often and tend to sleep less than when they were younger. This has an explanation: his health is so fragile that getting to sleep deeply could “disconnect” the mind from the body too much, causing the person to never wake up again.
Well, the same thing happens with babies. They wake up often and have hardly any deep sleep so that, in case of apnea (which is the situation that precedes the SMSL), they wake up easily. If instead, with artificial milk, They manage to sleep longer and deeper, the risk increases.
Increased risk of chronic diseases
Artificial milk does not favor intestinal maturation since it has no species specificity (in fact it is cow's milk, as we have said, modified) and lacks immunomodulatory and antiallergic effect. This makes the baby's intestine is more permeable to macromolecules (Babies are born with a very permeable intestine and as they grow they lose that permeability, allowing fewer and fewer substances to pass, so some foods are delayed in order to avoid allergies and intolerances).
Being the most permeable intestine in babies who drink artificial milk, allergies and diseases such as diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, celiac disease, multiple sclerosis, juvenile chronic arthritis, leukemia and lymphoma are more frequent.
We often talk about the importance of giving breast milk at least up to six months, well, there are studies that show that only 4 months of breastfeeding reduce the risk of allergies at two years, protect against asthma, wheezing episodes , allergic rhinitis and severe symptoms of allergic disease.
With respect to celiac disease, appears earlier and is up to four times more frequent in babies who drink artificial milk. Now, for the protective effect of breast milk to occur, the baby must be breastfed while starting to take gluten-free foods and a few months after starting.
If we talk about the type 1 diabetes mellitus, which is an autoimmune disease, there is a relationship between artificial milk feeding the first 3-6 months and the development of the disease in genetically predisposed people.
In America, the AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) recommends breastfeeding and avoid using commercial milks and other products that contain cow's milk proteins during the first 12 months in families with a history of this type of diabetes.
Refering to acute childhood leukemia and lymphomasIt has been observed that breastfeeding for more than six months protects against these diseases. Protein has been related alpha-lac, present in breast milk, with this effect, since this protein induces apoptosis of cancer cells and other immature cells and rapid growth and allows the growth of mature and stable cells.
Artificial milk, on the other hand, seems to be a obesity risk factor. The reason could be the greater contribution of proteins and micronutrients of formula milk, although the possible overfeeding that can occur when a baby takes a bottle is not ruled out either.
When they are babies, the differences are minimal, however a higher frequency of obesity is observed in adolescents who have been bottle fed. The more months a baby has been drinking breast milk, the lower the incidence of obesity in adolescence.
The blood pressure It also seems to be related to the type of feeding of babies, since it has been seen that, at the age of 7, children who were fed artificial milk have a significantly higher systolic blood pressure than those of children who had received breast milk, even if not exclusively, during the first 15 weeks of life.
One of the most serious diseases of babies, since it has a greater associated morbidity and mortality, is the necrotizing enterocolitis. Babies fed with artificial milk have a significantly higher risk of suffering it, especially if they are premature, who have to live for a time in a hospital environment where germs that can cause such disease predominate.
Worst cognitive development
Various studies have shown that the intellectual development of people who were bottle fed (most adults today) it is significantly worse than that of those who were breast fed. To make this relationship, confounding factors such as the socioeconomic level of the parents have been eliminated, for example.
In breastfed babies better levels of cognitive function are observed at 6-23 months, than in those who received artificial milk. This difference is most striking when studying premature babies. The benefits in cognitive development are directly proportional to the time a baby is breastfed.
As I say, most adults today were bottle fed. It is not that we have any deficit for it, but quite the opposite, if we had been breastfed we would probably be smarter.
The affective bond
Surely everyone has heard or read that breastfeeding helps create a strong emotional bond between mother and child. This does not mean that the bottle-giving mother is not going to create it, however it is true that, those babies who drink artificial milk are less in contact with their mothers and this causes more interference when it comes to bonding.
The emotional bond we are talking about is the relationship established between the mother and the baby, which has nothing to do with love. That is, the love between mother and son is evident. It appears at the same time when the woman knows she will be a mother and becomes full when the baby is born. The link, on the other hand, although it depends on love (without love, there will hardly be a link), it can take a different path, since it is more related to the type of relationship that is created with the baby.
Babies are all born with similar needs, which does not mean that everyone has to be treated the same way. A mother accustomed to caring for her baby in a way that is practical, useful and efficient could fail resoundingly if she tried to do the same with another baby of the same age. This means that All babies have their own personality, their usually common needs, but a way of communicating their own that only their mother (or his father) He is able to come to understand.
That relationship of understanding, in which the mother understands the baby's feelings, her requirements and what she may need, sometimes even before she asks for it, is what could be considered the affective bond between mother and child. The mother feels that she needs to take care of her son and in fact wants to do it and the baby feels that she needs to be taken care of and she wants her mother to do it. This creates an exclusive relationship in which the baby feels loved and safe and is able to grow and develop in a pleasant way.
Breastfeeding a baby is, physically speaking, the union of the baby's mouth, which is incredibly developed as standard (both for the ability to suck and for the ability to feel pleasure with sucking and even as an organ of exploration - already you know that babies take everything in their mouths to receive information about what they have taken), with the mother's chest. There are those who have come to call the mother's breast “external placenta”, since once the baby is born and the umbilical cord that joins the placenta (internal) is cut, the baby must cling to the breast to continue feeding and to remain attached to the body that has been gestated for 9 months, that of his mother.
Children who take a bottle have to change their mother's breast for a nipple, losing such skin-to-skin contact and moving their head and body away from the sounds of their mother's body. If we take into account that babies who drink artificial milk are fed less times a day, because they tend to be 3 hours without eating, between take and take, we can see that The time they are in arms to be fed is less than the time they spend with a breastfeeding mother. If we also take into account that not all bottles are given by the mother, but many times the father or other relatives lend themselves to feed the baby, the contact time is still shorter.
Therefore, it is concluded that babies fed with formula milk are more difficult to achieve a solid emotional bond with their mother, who is their primary caregiver.
Photos | Flickr - Alessandro Perilli, Szeto Clan, nateOne, Qole Pejorian
In Babies and more | Dairy products in infant feeding: disadvantages of artificial milk (I), Children fed with formula milk suffer more infections than those who breastfeed, Artificial milk is not sterile, Breast milk saves lives, Breastfeeding or artificial milk : The confusion of new mothers
