to expect people to know there is lactose in breastmilk

[Molybdenum]

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.

Apparently it often develops in people who have a gluten allergy as this stresses the gut making it more sensitive to other allergens, cue the lactose intolerance. I don't have a link for this, but DM told me on the telephone the other day. If anyone wants a link to my mother, you're more than welcome....

I hate it too. I have a biochem background and I get irationally angry about the quite frankly thick statements made by a lot of my educated friends about food and nutrition. I need to get over it but I can't!

The lactose thing drives me nuts to. I know people who say you should give babies goats milk but not cows milk as babies can't have lactose. Like there are nauty lactose calls that only evolved in cows and NO OTHER MAMMALS.

My mad theory is that all of this 'good' and 'bad' food is a replacement for religion in a secular society. Every one seems to think it is somehting you can have an 'opinion' on and debate. Belugh!!!

I would have thought if fairly self-explanatory without needing to know much in the way of science..

Lac = latin for milk

Lactose

Lactating...

YAB quite U to expect people to know anything very much about breastmilk or about lactose unless they have had issues with either.

I knew breast milk has lactose in it and I'm an English graduate who "only" did double science at GCSE. It's just logical surely?

@blueemerald For anyone who speaks english or any other latin-based language with an adult degree, yes it it pretty fecking obvious.

God, i ahve got to have a glass of wine I am so riled up.

Yes because everyone knows Latin...

@Only - Or english

TBH I never really thought about it as I've never really cared worried about Lactose.

However, if I was actively avoiding something then I would research it.

Quite interestingly, the capacity to break down lactose in adults has arisen by mutations in different human populations. Usually populations with access to cattle.

It is not that common to be lactose tolerant, if we consider the overall human population.
But European populations are largely tolerant.

I know that there is lactose in all milk (although varying levels). I also know that most mammals lose the ability to digest lactose when they leave infancy. I don't expect other people to necessarily know that, the same way there are lots of things that some people know that I don't. Ignorance is not the same as stupidity.

The doctor told us that DS was lactose intolerant when he was about 1 month old. So I stopped consuming dairy products and carried on breastfeeding and his symptoms subsided.

Yes it's obvious that breastmilk has lactose in it but cows milk is harder to digest for babies/toddlers, to my understanding.

I think there are things that some people do and don't know/understand. I'd hardly be shocked by it. I told some of students that a tomato is a fruit and they refused to believe me. No skin off my nose.

It is self explanatory but that doesn't mean that people will make the link.

My mother is very bright, well educated and she was convinced that gay women were not homosexual because homo means man so mansexual. It was a real lightbulb moment when homogenous, homophone, homograph etc were pointed out as having the greek homo prefix. tbf, she speaks latin but not greek but it was obvious to me and I speak neither.

I have a chemistry degree and didn't make the connection between the trans fats much talked about in the daily mail and trans isomerism. I thought it was just a thing people talked about, like organic meaning no pesticides, rather than, well, organic.

yes you would think you would work it out
lact=milk (lactate, etc)
ose=sugar (like glucose, sucrose etc)
I think the stressing about food replacing religion theory is quite plausible, despite having dd with genuine blood tested nut allergy. I also think that attempting to control everything our dcs eat is a subsitute for not being able to control everything else that happens. It's also a luxury! What my kids call, 1st world problem!

You can't know everything. Like, I'm well educated and super amazing intelligent, and the stuff I don't know about is quite immense.

I can guarantee that there is a least one thing that is as obvious to me as water = wet that the OP doesn't know. Probably the same for all of us.

there seems to be a lot of confusion between cows milk protein and lactose though - I have so many friends/acquaintances who claim their bfed baby is lactose intolerant, because they have had a slight reaction to cows milk at 6 months old. And have pointed out (politely :o) that lactose intolerant breast fed babies do not tend to thrive on breast milk, and suddenly become intolerant at weaning age... Sadly most of them have been told that it's lactose intolerance by their GPs

I don't know what the specific cows milk proteins are that people are intolerant/allergic to though, does anyone here know?

Just because some English graduates know, it doesn't mean that all English graduates can be expected to know.

Besides, would many people know that the lactose in cow's milk and human milk is identical?

Unlike the proteins.

Kveta, probably casein, which is harder to digest.

And doctors often know very little.

In fact, my old paediatrician didn't know the genetics of blood groups, which I had learnt at secondary school.

I'm very curious how lactose-intolerant babies are breast-fed
Babies generally aren't lactose intolerant, it's something that develops as people get older. There is something called galactosemia which means babies can't be breast-fed or have normal formula. That's not lactose intolerance as such, but they cannot have any lactose at all. It's a life-threatening condition and one of the things they look for in the new-born heel prick test. Babies can develop temporary lactose intolerance after severe D&V though. Lots of babies are allergic to Cow's Milk Protein and that's often mistaken for lactose intolerance - even by professionals!

Besides, would many people know that the lactose in cow's milk and human milk is identical?
They should. It's a type of sugar and therefore will have the same chemical composition wherever its found.

But not everyone knows that its a type of sugar, or that the -ose tells you that. There are plenty of things in life that if you've never had any reason to think about them, you just don't know much about it. I have a severely-lactose intolerant child so know all about it, but I didn't before hand. And I'm a science graduate.

"Besides, would many people know that the lactose in cow's milk and human milk is identical?
They should. It's a type of sugar and therefore will have the same chemical composition wherever its found"

Why should they know? Do you generally know things you have never been told and never had the need to know?

galactosemia is tested for as part of the PKU component of the heel prick test

I didn't know it contained lactose, but I never really thought about it. I have a biology based degree. All I thought about was that breastmilk is designed for babies so whatever is in it will be fine, formula is artificial and potentially difficult to digest even if it contains the same ingredients (like vitamins, they are much better absorbed from food than tablets)

I bf to try to prevent allergies, but it didn't work, ds can have small amounts of dairy but reacts severely to soya, the same as my sister did.

I can understand why she would specifically latch onto lactose as the allergen, a lot of people who can't have milk are allergic to lactose. I don't its worth getting stressed about! Its not a ridiculous idea.

Interestingly both ds and my sister developed their allergies at 16 months even though dsis was bf until 16 months and DS only until 13 months.

Do you generally know things you have never been told and never had the need to know?
I probably would've counted knowing what lactose was as general knowledge, but having read this thread perhaps that's unreasonable. I count having a fairly basic idea of how the body works as fairly essential as all have one! :)