My understanding is that manufacturers have not proven that adding fish oils to formula can benefit babies - that's why the claim is misleading.
Breast milk is naturally high in omega-3 fats; formula manufacturers have attemted to replicate this by adding fish oils (also high in omega-3 fats) to formula. Breast milk contains an enzyme called lipase that helps digest fat, so more energy is available to the baby and less fat is eliminated in the stools. Formula and cow's milk do not contain this enzyme, and the baby's intestines can't digest all of the fat in formula and cow's milk.
As far as I know there have been no trials to see whether adding the fish oil has the desired effect, although I can accept why this might be beneficial in theory.
"formula does provide every single nutrient that is essential to your babys growth and well being"
On paper, the vitamin-and-mineral profile of breast milk and formula may look the same - or it might even seem that formula contains more of some nutrients - but charts and comparisons can be deceiving. The nutrients in breast milk are better because of their high bioavailability, which means more of the vitamins and minerals that are in it get absorbed by the baby. What counts is not how much of a nutrient is listed on the label, but how much of that nutrient is absorbed through the intestines into the bloodstream. What counts is how much is available to the body - thus the term bioavailability.
The three important minerals calcium, phosphorus, and iron are present in breast milk at lower levels than they are in formula, but in breast milk these minerals are present in forms that have high bioavailability. For example, 50 to 75 percent of breast-milk iron is absorbed by the baby. With formula, as little as 4 percent of the iron is absorbed into baby's bloodstream. To make up for the low bioavailability of factory-added vitamins and minerals, formula manufacturers raise the concentrations. Sounds reasonable: if only half gets absorbed by the body, put twice as much into the can. This nutrient manipulation may, however, have a metabolic price.
Baby's immature intestines must dispose of the excess, and the unabsorbed minerals (especially iron) can upset the ecology of the gut, interfering with the growth of healthful bacteria and allowing harmful bacteria to flourish. This is another reason formula-fed infants have harder, unpleasant-smelling stools.
To enhance the bioavailability of nutrients, breast milk contains facilitators - substances that enhance the absorption of other nutrients; for example, vitamin C in human milk increases the absorption of iron. Zinc absorption is also enhanced by other factors in human milk. In an interesting experiment, researchers added equal amounts of iron and zinc to samples of human milk, formula, and cow's milk and fed them to human volunteers. More of the nutrients in the human-milk sample got into the bloodstream than in the formula and cow's milk. In essence, breast milk puts nutrients where they belong - in baby's blood, not in baby's stools.
The late Dr. Frank Oski, world-renowned pediatrician, former professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and our friend, was a longtime advocate of the importance of breastfeeding. He once said ?When researching the difference between human milk and formula, I discovered that there are over four hundred nutrients in breast milk that aren't in formula.?
As for "closer to breast milk" - closer than what? Closer than other formulas? Because they all claim that. Or closer than it used to be? The truth is, they are all closer to each other than they are to breastmilk.