Mumsnet Talk

I was talking to a woman I know, a very intelligent, highly educated breastfeeding mother, and she commented that she did not want to give her DS formula because she didn't want him to have any lactose. AIBU to be utterly shocked that she didn't seem to know that lactose is the carbohydrate found in milk, and therefore the carbohydrate found in human breastmilk?
Please tell me most people are not so unaware.

Even very intelligent, highly educated people can be dense at times.

You only have to look at he House of Commons to prove that point

Why does it matter to you, OP? It's constantly dinned into women that breastmilk is the thing to give your child so, whether it was full of lactose or ketchup, that's what women do.

You sound very sneery... please tell me you're not really like that?

She would have to be fairly educated in science.
She probably isn't.

Lots of people aren't.
And it might be something she hasn't really thought about.

My DD had multiple food intolerances. We attended a specialist paed clinic wrt her issues.

The BF co-ordinator at my local hospital caught me in the corridor of said hospital when she was a month old and lambasted me for giving up BF and not doing the best for her when I had fed DS for so long.

Luckily my HV was beside me and put her right.

The point is, even she didn't believe there was lactose in breastmilk

There is so much ignorance around breastfeeding, it's not surprising really.

Lots of highly educated people know practically nothing about science for some reason, its not necessarily something that you pick up just by being alive and it isn't on the curriculum until Biology A level, which lots of people don't do. Loads of people think someone with CMP allergy can have lactose free milk. Why didn't she want him to have lactose <nosy>?

Lying: I guess I am quite inwardly sneery! I wasn't sneering at this woman though, just quite surprised that she wasn't aware herDS was already consuming lactose.
Lueji: that's interesting. I really did think it was general knowledge rather than science-specific knowledge.

TBH I didn't really know much about this until I started bfing.

I didn't know that. (And I've got 3 post grad degrees and breast fed each of my 3 kids for at least 12 months......)

canihavesome: she just thought lactose was a 'bad' thing, an allergen I guess, and didn't want her DS exposed to it.

I'd never really thought about it myself..

and now I am, I'm very curious how lactose-intolerant babies are breast-fed - since that covers a huge number of people in asia I'm going to have to go and google now to see if anything can answer my questions.

I had never even heard of lactose until I had given birth. I tried desperately to feed my son for 6 weeks. Then I found out he was lactose intolerant (there was no internet in those days) so had to learn pretty quickly all about it. Thank the Lord for Soya Milk, I say.

ChunkyPickle Tiktok can explain more, but lactose intolerance is extremely rare in new born babies. It usually appears around the age of two years.

Why didn't she want him to have lactose? There's a half-baked idea somewhere here, isn't there?

<just as nosey as canihavesome>

What did we do without google..

www.babycenter.com/0_lactose-intolerance_1201464.bc

according to this, lactose intolerant babies are very rare, it normally presents itself much later (puberty).

You learn something new every day.

I knew that. Not sure it's general knowledge though.

Its really rare to be lactose intolerant as a baby/child. As you get older the gene for lactase stops being expressed and you become lactose intolerant.

ChunkyPickle: lactose intolerance in babies is extremely rare, as babies are born with the enzyme to break lactose down. Production of this enzyme decreases in humans with age, so many adults are lactose intolerant as they lose the ability to break down lactose.
Most young children reacting negatively to milk products are reacting to the milk protein rather than the lactose.

Belgo my DD was diagnosed as lactose intolerant at around 2 months of age (along with tons of other stuff)

X-post belgo

Now I'm curious too about why she'd single out lactose as something to avoid!

Because it's an -ose and a sugar? In her head? Because it says -ose?

As I said, extremely rare, doesn't mean impossible!

By the way, she had CMP as well.

And soy intolerance

And wheat intolerance

And egg allergy

And

And

And

I can kind of understand that it's something one might just not know, but if it was something she specifically wanted to avoid then 2 minutes on Google would have put her straight.