Breastmilk Alone May Provide…
Okay, complete that sentence ;o) !
The Day in Medicine
Published Date: 04-07-2008 01:27 PM CT
Breast milk alone may provide infants with all the nutrition they need.Meg Oliver has that story and more in today’s health watch report….New research shows full-term babies who are exclusively breast-fed are not at heightened risk of low iron levels, even if their mothers were iron-deficient during pregnancy.The findings support experts’ belief that breast milk alone provides most infants with adequate nutrition…Those are some of today’s top medical stories.I’m Meg Oliver - CBS News - New York.
(thanks Cheryl!)
enjoy!
Love,
Heather
this musing is related to this comic: May Provide?!
ferrous said,
April 16, 2008 @ 2:27 pm
amazing, isn’t it?
it reminds me of the news stories they come up with that tell us that fresh fruit & vegetables & regular exercise keeps us healthy. who’d a thunk it!?
aelial said,
April 16, 2008 @ 3:00 pm
Breathing air may supply you with all the oxygen you need to live. Washing with water may get your hands clean. Putting one foot in front of the other may help you get across the room.
sewathomemama said,
April 16, 2008 @ 3:27 pm
i think what she meant to say was “New research shows full-term babies who are exclusively breast-fed [receive all the iron they need] even if their mothers were iron-deficient during pregnancy. The findings support [mothers’ long-held knowledge] that breast milk alone provides [all] infants with [perfect] nutrition.”
wiffersnapper said,
April 16, 2008 @ 5:08 pm
OK… cows feed their babies nothing but cow milk. Cow babies thrive. Sheep feed their lambs nothing but sheep milk. Sheep babies thrive. Squirrels feed their babies nothing but squirrel milk… how come we humans think that OUR milk is somehow deficient? This logic isn’t. My response to this report is, “Well, of course it does! That’s what it’s for!” Even MY milk is the right nutrition for my preemie baby- they’ve discovered that mothers of preemies make different milk based on the different nutritional needs of their preemie babies.
Another pointless study, probably done with my tax money. (sigh) Did we find the cure for cancer, that we have all this extra time/money/brainpower to WASTE??
thepooka said,
April 16, 2008 @ 11:47 pm
This just seems sinister to me. The only reaction I can imagine having aside from disbelief at the “sun rising may provide light” result is asking the question, “Wait? It may *not*?”
They get to lie without lying and pretend to be pro-mother while they do it. Blegh.
KrisWW said,
April 17, 2008 @ 3:36 am
“adequate nutrition”
Why is adequate such an inadequate word?
Julinda said,
April 17, 2008 @ 5:35 am
Well, I’m glad they let us know. I was kind of worried.
Anyone seen ads for products with stuff “found in breastmilk” added? Like Flinstones vitamins. I’m thinking, does this mean that kids old enough to take Flinstones need the ingredients of breastmilk and should maybe still be breastfed? Anyway, if they’re adding breastmilk ingredients to food and vitamins, it must mean breastmilk is pretty great.
jeanette said,
April 17, 2008 @ 5:35 am
Who are these idiots who aren’t sure that breastmilk is the perfect baby food? PhD material!
mamaof5 said,
April 17, 2008 @ 8:54 am
wiffersnapper: RIGHT ON!
Formula has been a way to use up the left over milk stuff and make loads of money off of it. Why do they need to keep improving it to be more like breastmilk, if it is so good to begin with. Every time they find out something great is in breast milk they try and ad some chemical to formula to make it “just like breastmilk”.
I think what “we” don’t get is that you the way the whole food acts together is what makes it so great. It is like when they find out something really great is in tomatoes and so they make a suppliment with just thatin it and it has as much of that thing as 20 tomatoes… except it isn’t just that ONE THING it is all the things in the tomato working together, so you don’t need to eat 20 tomatoes!
That is what it is like with breastmilk… this got a bit off topic. LOL Sorry
Heather in Tucson
Becci76 said,
April 17, 2008 @ 8:56 am
This reminds me of our first pediatrician appointment with a particular doctor. She told us that we needed to start giving our exclusively breastfed son a vitamin supplement because “breastmilk does not have enough vitamin D (for a dark skinned child–my husband is Persian__or Iron in it.” Well, I went to go find that (being a dummy) and couldn’t. Funny enough, the one I was looking for was made by what??–guess it–you got it, a formula company! So I asked the pharmacist what he thought I should do and he said “a breastfed baby doesn’t need Iron and you can just go outside with him a few times a day and he will get enough vitamin D.”
That dingy doctor had me convinced that my milk “wasn’t good enough.” It gets worse though, the same son had a little cold and my husband brought him to see the doctor at his mother’s (she’s a nurse) insistence. So he saw some other person who told my husband that my 9 month old (at the time) wasn’t receiving any antibodies from me anyway now and he really wasn’t protected by getting my BM. She said “a child gets no immunologic benefit after 6 months.” I about rolled over and died. I flipped. So, at our next “well child” appointment I asked our regular ped why she would have said that and she said “no it’s true, they don’t get any benefit from it.” This is Kaiser! Kaiser and their “thrive” messages plastered everywhere and they have doctors telling women to make their children do the opposite of “thrive”!
Anyway, that was sort of a tangent. But close enough. Many supposed “smart” people don’t get what we “common folk” already know and trust. (Totally tongue in cheek, I swear).
alisaterry said,
April 17, 2008 @ 9:21 am
Ha ha ha ha ha!
IDIOTS.
queenmommy911 said,
April 17, 2008 @ 9:56 am
Breastmilk alone may provide the brain power to know that anyone who actually *needs* to see that news report won’t give a rip-roaring snot about it…Gotta love the new-fangled info-tainment! (eyes rolling out of my head)
A bit of newsworthy info I just ran across this morning: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=559913&in_page_id=1879 I wonder how this would fair on the nightly news.
juliepie said,
April 17, 2008 @ 11:20 am
Derrrrrr…God made breastmilk. I think the big guy knows what he’s doing.
typeogirl999 said,
April 17, 2008 @ 3:33 pm
No kidding…
sapphire_chan said,
April 18, 2008 @ 2:38 am
What’s next, an article about how water has no calories?
wiffersnapper said,
April 18, 2008 @ 4:55 am
Hey Becci76- You might want to point out that, even if the children aren’t getting any “immunologic” benefit from breastmilk, they’re using nursing as stress-reduction, therefore making themsleves more able to fight off germs! My preemie doesn’t get a lot of milk when she nurses yet, (I’m pumping and giving her bottles in the meantime) but she sure does find those boobies comforting!
gemini3 said,
April 18, 2008 @ 6:05 am
You’ve got to be kidding me…
I had my pediatrician tell me the same thing. To give my exclusively breastfed two month old baby a vitamin supplement. With no other explanation other than he’s probably not getting it from me..
Yeah…. right.. he’s 7 months old today and perfectly healthy without vitamin drops! (and yes, the one’s he told me to get were made by a formula company) We get to try out his new doctor next week
Becci76 said,
April 18, 2008 @ 9:06 am
queenmommy911, I kept reading that article waiting for the NOT! or the PSYCHE!
Hmmmm…It makes me wonder….I am sort of dumbfounded!
wiffersnapper said,
April 19, 2008 @ 4:47 pm
They sent my preemie home from the hospital with vitamin drops, too… and all she’s ever had is my breastmilk. She has a strong opinion of those drops- she spits them back out! (Which tells me something- she knows more than the doctors do!) Since they’re full of iron, they don’t wash out of anything, either… I think we know where those drops are headed… (Maybe it’s the formula company and the pajama company teaming up!)
Anniee451 said,
April 25, 2008 @ 2:37 pm
Holy sheepdip, Batman, it’s Captain Obvious! Breast milk MAY…good lord.
Thankfully, with my son, I had a pediatrician who was an immigrant (from India IIRC) and on his first visit she asked how I was feeding him; I said “nursing” and when she asked how often I said “on demand,” and she nodded, and said “Good. That’s the best way. And he’ll get a little more regulated as he grows.” Of course I was going to do it anyway, but I really hate having to educate doctors all the time lol.
janaki said,
April 26, 2008 @ 11:13 am
MAY Provide???? hehe… well it’s a start!