info about BM versus FM

[micegg]

Does anyone know where I can get some accurate info about what is actually in breat milk and formula milk. I am pregnant with baby 2 and am considering my options. BF was an absolute nightmare with DD but thats another story. She ended up being FF quite early on despite much effort. I want to make an infomred choice as my experience has made me quite negative about BF. In particular I want to know:

1. Whats in FF
2. How much of what we eat/ come into contcat with ends up in BM - IE chemicals, etc.

If anyone coudl suggest a source of reliabale info for this I would be grateful.

I dont know of any specific sites that would give you this information (hopefully someone else will).

But if your choice is going to be based solely on which is nutritionally better for your child - the answer is - as even the formla companies would say - that BF is the best for baby.

i will contribute with my one tiny bit that makes me get up everyday and pump right away for my DD who needs extra milk in the bottle once in a while: there are more than 100 nutrients in the breast milk that cannot be synthesized in the lab, or found in the nature.

while breast milk is always adapting its contents according to the baby needs (the breast milk in the morning is different from the one in the afternoon and the one in the evening), formula is static.

Hard question, micegg

Formula milk is basically cows milk, skimmed, with the protein content modified to make it a little easier for the baby to digest it. You can read the other ingredients on the packs, but as many of them are not the sort of things you'd have in your own kitchen cupboard it's not terribly revealing. One of the frequent discussions on mumsnet revolves around the fact that there is no indepenent assessment of formula ingredients but as the basic formulation has to meet UK regulations, you can be sure that all the brands will be basically pretty similar.

Formula milk also has chemicals in it and if you are concerned about contaminants, you need to consider the ones found in the water used to mix the powder (or in the water that's already there in ready to feed), the ones in the plastic in the bottles, the one in the teat.

Breastmilk does have chemicals in, too, and reflects the state of our bodies, but this has never been shown to affect infant health. Not everything in food or drink or in the air gets into breastmilk.

There's no doubt that your choice is likely to have an impact on your baby's health, but it's no good telling mothers this and that being enough - there's not enough support to help mothers overcome bf problems, and I hope you have a happier experience this time round.