Mil didn't add boiling water to bottle

[harleysmammy]

I left my 5 month old with my mil today for the first time. Me and my partner went shopping as mil has a broken foot and is house bound for a while so we thought it would be nice for her to have his company. I was nervous and I didn't want to leave him and I felt awful but I trust her obviously, she's my mil. Anyway, she fed him 7 oz whilst we was out and I thought nothing of it. She's had 2 kids I assumed she knew. We got back and my son started grizzling, so she made him another 4 oz. I heard her shaking the powder with the formula but then she came straight back in and gave it too me. It was cold. I then had bad pains in my belly after I realised she hadn't boiled the kettle and hadn't done for the feed that she'd fed him whilst we was out. I didn't say anything but when we left, I told my partner we wouldn't be leaving him again. This is the type of thing I was afraid off. I love my mil and I trust her so much but this is why I didn't want to leave him -not with her, with anyone. He's had about 11-12 ounces with cold water, will he be okay??

Thing is, op, you are cross that MIL is doing it wrong, but you are also not following the instructions are you? The instructions (at least, the ones I read on the internet the other day), specify freshly boiled water allowed to cool for no more than 30 minutes. Yet you left boiling water on a flask? That doesn't seem to fit the instructions to me. The instructions I read also said not to use water that had been re-boiled.
Also, as another poster has mentioned, it was recommended to give cooled boils water between feeds years ago. My dc2 was a summer baby and I was advised to give water from just a couple of weeks old.

The flask keeps the water hot and babies don't need extra water between feeds especially at only a few weeks old

I've had 3DC recently here in the US. They want you to make formula with tap water. They frown on using bottled water unless it's freshly opened from a sealed bottle but this is 2nd to tap water. Boiled water is used for premie and other immuno deficient babies.

The U.K. follows the WHO and those instructions assume the worst. I also never officially sterilized a bottle. Everything was chucked in the dishwasher on the sanitize cycle.

Demented
I understand what a flask does! I am merely pointing out that whilst op is cross that her MIL did not make up the bottle according to current instructions, neither is on if she's using water from a flask. Whilst I also understand from this thread that it is no longer recommended to give babies water, when mine were babies, that was the advice. It is reasonable therefore that ops grandparents may have also understood it was OK to give to her sister.

Interesting. Just shown this thread to DH. Turns out our mixed bf/formula fed children had bottles made up of whatever he fancied. Sometimes cold tap water sometimes cool boiled. Depending on the time of day and how much of a hurry he was in. None have been any the worse for it. No allergies or problems with food intolerances. All teens /twenties now.
Although had I known at the time I would probably of bollocked him.

The issue here is your level of anxiety. That's the issue that needs addressing. The milk thing is easily solved by taking pre mixed cartons next time.

Ok so it wasn't ideal. But hardly crime of the century. Tell her. I'm sure he'll be fine. It's a minor one off.

Is baby now vomitting?
If not then baby is fine
Five months not five days old so no harm done
Next time buy prepared cartons

The reason for the change in guidance as to how to make up bottles was that there was a batch of formula contaminated with something like botulism. So most of the time no harm will come if using cool water but if you get a bad batch you are covered by using hot.

Every generation, and every country have their own rules i assume.
I live in Holland now and here the instructions for Nutrilon (aka Aptamil in UK) are:
Boil water and cool it till warm (37C)
Make the bottle
Feed baby

So exactly the same formula even and different instructions.
With my DS at first i used hot boiled water and cooled it, having read all the posts on MN, then we swithed to anti reflux formula (same brand), and boiled water simply does not work, the powder does not dissolve properly.

Aw, it's a big deal leaving your baby and as advice changes all the time grandparents do often do what was standard practice in their day without really thinking.
I am sure your baby will be fine and it really will be ok for MIL to look after her again. You just need to make sure she is up to date on a few things.

I always made my bottles with cold previously boiled water.

The adding boiling water to the powder instruction is there to cover their backs. There's been no known examples of bacteria contaminated milk in this country for years.

And, if you genuinely believe that boiled water should be used then I wouldn't use flask water either (in fact, I wouldn't have used flasked hot water. I filled a fresh kettle, poured the water into all the clean sterilised bottles and then left them to cool. When I made up a bottle I tipped out water up to the required amount (if less than the level to which the bottle was filled), added the powder and shook)

If you don't like the way she did it, tell her how you do it and ask her to do it that way.

Unsure why people are being sceptical about other countries' advice to use cold water, it's pretty standard. And some countries (France for example) definitely advise using bottled water. They even sell it in the baby aisle.

I actually happen to appreciate that the UK advice is more stringent and would follow it myself. But it's not like it's instant death formula if you don't use boiling water.

US advice: similac.com/baby-feeding/formula/how-to-make-bottle

Australia: www.karinourish.com.au/products/0-6-month-range/karicareplus-infant-formula-stage-1/ (Click "Directions for use")

Germany: www.aptawelt.de/en/products/productfinder/milk-formula/aptamil-profutura-1.html

Demented - your post of 17/9 is very rude. You could have answered my honest question without the aggressive attitude.

Normal bacteria cannot grow in the absence of moisture that is why drying is a commonly used preservation method. I have knowledge of this from my degree.

It is also why the advice for making up bottles when mine were babies was to add powder to cooled boiled water.

I had not heard about this botulism incident . It must have been caused by contamination with resistant spores due to a complete fail in manufacturing safety standards. A similar incident happened with canned tuna years back but nobody boils their tuna before using it.

With her broken foot it may have been better and more helpful if you made the bottle up before you left the baby with her. Poor woman!

It wasn't botulism and wasn't an isolated incident. It's Enterobacter sakazakii and it survives in powdered formula. It has caused illness and death. I have a degree too!

Again the attitude!

Botulism was suggested by eurochick in post on 18/9. As I said I haven't heard of the incident. Though seems to have been very isolated as didn't make headline news.

Do you have a link?

Tap water in UK is fine. Cold is fine.
From an infection prevention perspective boiled water is used because lots of parents make up a number of bottles and then store them. There is a risk that any bacteria could grown in the solution over the 24 hour period. If a bottle is used immediately there is no opportunity for the bacteria to multiply to levels that cause problems.
Your mother was absolutely right.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4662064/#!po=74.2063 this is quite interesting. The issue with this bacteria led to the change in the way you are supposed to prepare formula so it must have made some impact.

Just tell her and she won't do it again. Your reaction suggests you have a little anxiety perhaps?

So some people say the boiling water is to kill bacteria in the milk, others say to leave 30 mins and then make up the bottle.....If it is left it isn't boiling and therefore will not kill any bacteria.

Anywho, the baby at 5m is probably sucking bacteria from one's carpet regularly!

The 'no longer than 30 minutes ' rule is so it's not at boiling temperature but is still over 70 degrees. It is up to 30 minutes, not always exactly 30 minutes so if you want you can make them up a bit sooner