Bottle feeding = 120 Mars bars by 8 months

[MrsDoolittle]

OOoer

fire - excellent post !

I FF and chose Cow and Gate because it claimed to be closest to breast milk and I never even gave a thought to the calorific value. If they're as different as the article says, then Cow and Gate aren't really that close to breastmilk at all.

But on the other hand, I thought babies needed the calories?

God my brain is all mushed.

golden, the calorie value of formula and breast is very similar. But formula fed babies routinely take more because of various reasons, which, the article (and research) indicates, is not a good thing. However, something not mentioned in the article is that ff babies actually do need some of these 'extra' calories because of the extra work the metabolism does, digesting the formula, which is not needed when digesting breastmilk.

BTW, all the formulas available claim to be closer to breastmilk

I think I dislike the calorie reference because not all calories are created equal. I wouldn't feed DS a Mars bar because it contains empty calories - there is nothing wrong with consuming calories in themselves.

I also would genuinely like to know how they work out the differences between the calories in breastmilk and formula. I can understand how you would work out what calories were in formula, (presumably the same as any other food), but how do you work out exactly how many calories are in breastmilk, given that as the article says babies require different amounts of calories? It wouldn't surpise me if DS had been consuming more calories as a BF baby than if we had been following the instructions on the side of a box of forumla. I know the point is about babies being able to regulate their own intake, but stupid Mars Bars comparisons distract from this point.

Also re: growth charts, DS was BF and on the ninety somethingth centile (can't remember which - it all seems irrelevant now), but I think the major influence on this was genes, rather than method of feeding.

I am scepticle about the obesity thing. I thought most people formula fed in the seventies (my mum certainly did), and very few children were fat in the seventies. I don't deny that there could be a link, but I am sure that decreased activity and increased availability of junk food have a far bigger impact on levels of obesity. In my NCT group most mothers BF, but some couldn't and you certainly wouldn't be able to tell which child was which.

Anyway, my major gripe with this article is that whatever the merits of the original research, the article comes across to me as cobbled together bad science, which doesn't do anybody any good.

Madame: I agree with you about the Mars Bars comparison, though I think the author might say the 'extra' calories taken in by a formula fed baby are not necessary either. However, as I pointed out, some of the extra is needed because of the extrta metabolic effort required wih formula.

You ask: I also would genuinely like to know how they work out the differences between the calories in breastmilk and formula.

They take samples of breastmilk and then average them out....overall, this is accurate enough for a comparison but you are right that at any individual feed, you won't be able to measure the calorie content of breastmilk as it will differ from baby to baby according to their needs on that particular occasion. The volume of 2 samples of breastmilk might be identical - eg 100 ml - but each sample might have different amounts of fat in it.

The evidence about obesity is growing, and there are many papers which appear to confirm the link. I think we are going to need more long-term studies before we can be sure. One recent paper indicated that formula feeding babies tend to start solids earlier than breastfeds, and it might be this that brings about the link with obesity, rather than the milk itself. If formula feeding mothers could be supported to keep their babies on milk only for longer (goes the theory) then the link with obesity might appear less.

You also say: I am sure that decreased activity and increased availability of junk food have a far bigger impact on levels of obesity.

Again, you may be right and it's hard to separate these factors out from the way these children were fed as infants. There are studies which take into account lifestyle and diet factors, but it has to be a very difficult thing to do. The obesity thing only starts to show up in childhood and later, so comparing babies and toddlers is not helpful.

There's a good paper which takes a sober look at it all \link{http://www.ibfan.org/english/news/bbriefs/bbrief38.html\here.

I like the way this paper regards it as a public health issue - this is something for society/government/the health services to take on board, not individual mothers to feel bad or scared about. The US public health machinery have declared the only cost-effective measures that are likely to work with regard to obesity are a reduction in TV watching and more breastfeeding. They regard campaigning to put both those into practice for children (adults being a lost cause, presumably) are practical and affordable.

Sorry - try this link:

here

Platypus - I think it is probably impossible to work out exactly how many calories a bf baby takes in at each feed, unless you analysed the contents of his stomach immediatley afer a feed ! With a ff baby it is relatively easy, you can see how much of a full bottle he has taken in and measure the calorific content.

Quantifying EBM doesn't help either because I found that whenever I gave DS EBM, he downed a whole bottle of it in minutes, whereas if he had actually been sucking from the breast he would have taken much less. Which is why I think what she says in the article is absolutley true, a bottle fed baby (whether formula or ebm) is unable to regulate the flow of milk into his mouth the way a bf baby can, and as the action of sucking from a bottle is much easier than sucking from a breast, it is much more likley that he overfeeds.

Add to that what she says about parents being "obsessed" with the baby finishing his bottle like finishing his plate of food. I do remember that when I had expressed milk into a bottle for DS, DH and I used to be obssessed with DS finishing the precious milk ! Of course it is psychological, you can see the contents of the bottle and want the baby to finish it. You can't see or quantify the contents of your boobs !

Of course, by the same token, it is very easy to underfeed a bf baby. Babies that are not put to the breast often enough, scheduled feeds, dummies, other objects that may pacify the baby instead of a boob, these may all interfere with the baby's ability to take in sufficient bm.