You are What You Eat: The Hidden Dangers of Infant Formula

By Ruby Toledo

You have been waiting for nine months to see your baby, to hold her in your arms, to touch her tiny hands, to kiss her cheeks. You deliver in the hospital overjoyed to have had a fast labor and happy to see that your baby has been born healthy and alert. Eager to feed your child for the first time you turn to the nurse and ask, "When can I give her a bottle?" The nurse looks at you and frowns, "You’re not breastfeeding?" Her tone of voice and facial expression imply that she thinks something is wrong with you.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP ) recommends exclusive breastfeeding for at least the first six months of life and "firmly adheres to the position that breastfeeding ensures the best possible health as well as the best developmental and psychosocial outcomes for the infant" (PEDIATRICS). So why do we ignore these recommendations? Why do we instead offer a formula, which by definition according to Webster’s is: "A RECIPE : PRESCRIPTION : a milk mixture or substitute for feeding an infant. Or: A symbolic expression of the chemical composition or constitution of a substance." We entrust this milk mixture substitute, this "substance" to feed our own children.

There is no doubt that we all want our children to grow up healthy. We constantly strive to keep them safe. We use state of the art car seats, follow the AAP recommended schedule for immunizations and doctor appointments. We make our children wear bicycle helmets and knee pads (when we were children were never used these things.) As parents, we double-check the labels on our children’s medication, we triple check references for surgeons, and we do simple things like fencing in our yards to keep out the dangers of the world. It seems we do everything in our power to keep our children safe and healthy, sometimes going so far as to give cell phones to elementary school students, just in case. I believe that as a general rule parents in America work very hard at protecting their children. Yet we ignore the importance of one of the first issues of parenting, one of the most important issues: The safety of our child’s first food.

This is one of the most important things that a mother has to decide; whether or not she will breastfeed her baby. When your tiny infant is looking up at you with her newborn eyes, she trusts you to feed her something safe. Why would we second-guess something so nutritional as breastfeeding? Why do we depend largely as a nation on a man-made product to nourish our infants, after our bodies have proven that they are capable of nurturing our unborn children? For nine months our children grow and thrive in our bodies, they receive all the nutrition that they need simply from their mothers womb. We trust in our bodies to bear our children, to bring them safely through the labor process and into our arms. We trust in this process because it has been successful for thousands and thousands of years. So why then do we lose all confidence in our bodies once the child is born and go against nature to offer factory produced formula? I say that it is going against nature because humans are the only mammals that readily offer another species' milk to their young.

Imagine walking into a pasture on a beautiful spring day and seeing a baby pig drinking from the breast of a mother deer. It’s a twisted image, right? What if you were at the zoo and saw a mother rhino nursing a tiger cub? These examples conjure up some really strange images in our mind. Now picture another image: A hungry human infant nursing from a mother cow. That is essentially what we have been doing for centuries: offering our newborn babies milk that was meant for baby cows. This just does not make sense. Milk is species specific; baby tigers drink tiger milk, baby pigs drink pig milk, and baby rhino’s drink rhino milk.

"The (baby) rhino has an anatomic variation in the stomach that provides four pouches that fill during a feeding and provide a constant trickle of milk to the central groove leading to the small intestine, thus creating a constant feed" (Lawrence 254). This method of feeding is perfect for the mother rhino, yet would not work for a human infant. That is why Mother Nature has given each species their own composition of milk. If the saying "you are what you eat" has any truth to it than a baby human should, as the AAP recommends, drink human milk. Formula is, after-all, made up of cow’s milk. Cow’s milk, however, has been proven to be contraindicated in an infant's diet. "Introduction of cow milk products (Similac, Enfamil, Good Start, etc.) before eight days is a significant risk factor for insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM)" (Walker 106). This is just one of many health problems that cow’s milk may cause. So why, knowing this, do we still feed formula to babies? We also have to think of the source: a cow. As one mother wrote,

On the contrary it is rather easy to see how this occurs. We live daily with huge pressures from formula companies telling us to buy their product, constantly bringing about feelings of inferiority, which some of us already have hidden in our minds. Images of bottles and infant formula cans are everywhere we look, anywhere that corporations can place them. It is rare to see images of breastfeeding babies and the images that we see of the breast are most often ones of sexual content. Even our doctors who we depend upon to educate us have coupons for and sometimes samples of infant formula in their offices. If they don’t have these things, they are sure to have magazines that are laced with formula ads. It is a common belief that "doctor knows best" so when we see these things we feel "if our doctor recommends it, it must be fine."

Most hospitals hand out free diaper bags complete with premixed bottles of formula with artificial nipples already attached, more coupons, and a "surprise" gift for mom. Did you ever hear of formula companies sending sales representatives dressed as nurses to maternity wards? These "nurses" would linger in the halls and discuss the benefits of formula with parents and family members of newborn babies. They were paid to impersonate nurses just to promote their product. That sounds deceitful almost to the point of being evil. But we understand that this is the way people do business in America. I love my country, don’t get me wrong, but I know as well as everyone that as a Nation we are constantly trying to "one up" everyone with our business schemes. According to Dr. Cicely D. Williams, a British doctor who has worked in many Third World countries, this process continues today, "The business of these "so-called nurses is to sell milk, not look after the health of the children, in Africa, I wouldn't let them in. They came to me about it, but I said no, not as long as I'm here." Williams said she found the same thing in Singapore where Nestle used women dressed as nurses to convince new mothers to use infant formula. " This sounds more like a business venture than a method of feeding a child, and that is because the production and distribution of formula is exactly that: A business. Ruth Lawrence M.D., shows us an example of this when she tells us that, "For many years despite study after study showing it’s benefits, there has been an effort to bury information about breastfeeding and no active campaign to encourage it. All along the World Health Organization’s (WHO) call to halt promotion of bottle-feeding worldwide, formula has been advocated in advertising. No one has sponsored breast-feeding because there is no money to be made doing so." (Horton). This is a prime example of the power of the dollar in America; formula companies are getting richer at our children’s expense.

So what really is going on here? Major corporations are getting bigger, the rich are getting richer and people are paying to feed their own babies when they could be doing it for free. The influence of commercialism is so high that it has had us believing that formula is superior to human breastmilk for many years. Formula companies have put ads everywhere we look in an attempt to persuade us to buy their product. It has obviously been very effective because people, rich and poor, are paying a lot of money just to feed their children. If you calculate the cost, formula is very expensive. "The estimated cost of artificial feeding (up to $1,200 per year for powdered formula) is four times more that of breastfeeding (approximately $300 per year for increased food for a lactating woman" (Ball). Powdered formula is the least expensive type of formula when compared to canned concentrate and ready-mixed, and it’s no wonder why.

In the year 2004 The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the WHO convened and announced the recommendation that, "Caregivers, particularly for infants at high risk, should be regularly alerted that powdered infant formula is not a sterile product" (Turner-Maffei et al.67). Powdered infant formula can easily become infected with bacteria and microorganisms if the scoop is not kept clean and the person preparing it does not practice meticulous handwashing. I know how hard it is to be meticulous when you have a hungry infant waiting to be fed, with breastfeeding you do not have to worry about outside contaminants, the packaging is perfect. We also have to think twice when feeding formula about where it came from. How many human hands touched it while processing, and were they clean hands? Is it worth taking a chance when it's possible that your formula may be recalled like other products often are?

Many times I have seen formula being sold behind the service desk because the storeowners are afraid it will be stolen. The very thought that mothers would risk jail time to steal formula, when instead they could be breastfeeding (for free) is disturbing. You have to agree, whether you are a formula-feeder or a breast-feeder, that when this "product" is stolen from stores on a regular basis there is a problem occurring in our society. And that’s only the beginning. The expense for choosing formula is not only in the actual cost of the product, you also have to consider the additional price of baby bottles, artificial nipples and bottle-brushes for cleaning. If we get really technical we mustn’t forget the price of dish soap to wash them, the additional cost of hot water, the price of the electricity while heating the stove to sterilize the bottles and the cost of disposal. There are thousands of unrecycled formula products like plastic bottles, nipples and cans taking up land this very moment.

It really adds up, especially when you take into consideration the additional doctor visits that your child will need if he drinks formula. In a study measuring the episodes of significant illness (episodes per 100 patients) during the first year of life, artificially (formula) fed infants had 110.8 episodes of serious illness compared with 93.8 for children that had been given limited breastmilk, and only 58.5 episodes for children that had been exclusively breastfed. (Lawernce). This tells us that indeed the formula fed infant will be sick more often. Lawrence states that during the 1920’s, "Physicians seemed more secure when they could prescribe nutrition" (633). Why should a healthy full-term infant or even a healthy preemie need a prescription for nutrition? I know that I don’t ingest something unless I really need it, I am very cautious with the things I put into my body.

There are cases where a mother cannot breastfeed or should not breastfeed, when no breastmilk is available and the only other option is formula. These cases are usually due to infectious disease, not because a mother cannot produce breastmilk. "At the present time, it is recommended that, in the United States, a mother with HTLV-1 disease (Human T-Cell Leukemia Type 1) should not breastfeed" (Maternal 142). Also, "Clinically effective treatments for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immunodificiency syndrome (AIDS) are still being developed; therefore, any behavior that increases the risk of transmitting the virus from mother to infant should be avoided in the United States" (Maternal 132). In these cases formula is a savior, it is a miracle of science that provides children of these sick mothers a means to survival. When it is used for a last resort, formula can be an adequate replacement to human milk. These two quotes I mention state that this is the rule for the "United States". In other countries they may still recommend breastfeeding an infant if you are infected with these diseases, because either there is no other option or they believe that the benefits of breastfeeding still outweigh the risks.

But what about the babies with healthy mothers that were meant to breastfeed and instead were given a cold plastic bottle, is this fair to them? If there were no milk in a mothers' breasts she would feed her child whatever she knew could keep him alive, but the simple fact remains that there is milk in every mothers’ breast that is produced especially for her child. Breastmilk is customized for a baby's different stages of growth, while formula remains the same product, in a can with an expiration date on a supermarket shelf. Whether you buy it today or in six months it will still be the same product. Is this something that you really want to feed your baby?

"Why would they give it to a baby if it were dangerous?" my mother asked me when I told her the topic of this paper. Why do people smoke cigarettes? Why do we eat too much and become obese, work twenty-two hour days and collapse with exhaustion? Why do we tell lies, cheat and steal or commit crimes? Eat brownies at three a.m. and go to bed with a stomachache? (Ok, maybe that’s just me.) Why do we eat foods that contain additives like "dye no 2"? Because we are all human. And we are not perfect. And as with all man-made things, formula is not perfect either. It has it’s own quiet dangers. It is a sad time when we pay for a formula that has been conjured up in a lab somewhere by a chemist in a white coat and we feel that this is supreme to the abilities that Mother Nature granted us; to feed our children human milk. With that in mind I would like to share a little bit about the hidden dangers of formula.

These "hidden dangers" become much more visible when your child is suffering from them. Did you know that it is a proven fact that formula-fed infants have more doctor visits, prescriptions and long term health problems than children who were exclusively breastfed? This now becomes an issue of long-term health and safety, one that affects every single human on the planet. In a survey which measured the instance of Global Child Deaths in 2000 (under five year-olds) the results found "Infants who are not breastfed have: seven times the risk of death from diarrhea. Five times risk of death from pneumonia compared to infants who are exclusively breastfed. Non exclusive breastfeeding results in two times the risk of dying from diarrhea or pneumonia as compared with exclusively breastfed infants" (Turner-Maffei et al. 53). This tells us that formula fed infants have a much greater risk of death from these diseases. These are not simply statistics, these were actual babies that suffered and died from these diseases. Imagine all of the babies that would have lived had they not been fed formula.

Am I saying that all parents who choose to feed their infants with formula are horrible? If that were true than I, too, would be a horrible parent. In 1997 when I gave birth for the second time I fed my baby formula. Why you ask? I was nineteen, exhausted and anemic. I was living an hour away from my family, had no friends and no support. My boyfriend had no clue about the side effects of formula or about the extreme benefits of breastfeeding. At that point in my life neither did I. I had breastfed my first child up until my sixth month of my second pregnancy and felt that if anyone touched my breasts again I would literally explode. Those were my reasons for offering my daughter formula, and for the rest of my life I have to live with them.

I never knew about the increased risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). In a case-control study conducted in the US between 1988 and 1989 it was found that:

I had no idea that I would be spending more money on her medical bills either. "For private and government insurers, a minimum of $3.6 billion must be paid each year to treat diseases and conditions preventable by breastfeeding" (Ball et al. 103). Three billion dollars is a lot of money and could no doubt be spent sending all of these children to college instead. I never knew that my daughter would most likely develop allergies, "Artificially breast-milk fed infants have increased rates of allergic disease" (Walker 106), or that she would not have the nutrition essential for developing the brain to the highest extent. "Lower mental development and IQ scores are seen at all ages through adolescence in artificially breast milk fed infants (formula fed)" (Walker 106). In straight terms her IQ would be lower than her siblings' and her overall health would be inferior along with all other formula fed babies.

I wish that I could change my decision now, but I can’t. I was uninformed. I wasn’t sat down and told about the quiet dangers of formula, the risks of contamination, and as far as I can recall nobody encouraged me to breastfeed her. It seemed to me that it was not very important at the time. I did however feel a pain in my heart when other people fed her a bottle. "I am her mother," I thought, "I should be the one feeding her that bottle." I wish I could transport myself back to her birth and, after the doctors removed the cord that was so tightly wound around her little purple neck, lift her gently to my breast and offer her comfort. Instead she screamed and screamed for so long because the hospital had a policy: You have to wait at least one hour before feeding your child a bottle of formula. I ask myself now, "why didn’t you breastfeed her?"

If my four children were in a line, you would not be able to tell which one had been fed formula at first glance, but if you thought about formula fed infant statistics you may. She is the only one out of four that is overweight, the only one that has allergies (eczema) even though all of my children have been exposed to the same foods and activities. These are things that are proven to be caused by drinking formula, and it makes me feel guilty. If every mother could feel this guilt running through my veins they would give up formula completely. I have made many, many mistakes in my life but this is the one that I would change above all others. It is possible to begin breastfeeding for any amount of time and your child will reap the benefits, yet if you choose only formula you cannot change this. It’s not simply a quick decision between two level playing fields. This is a decision that lasts a lifetime, one that will affect my daughter for the rest of her life. Had I breastfed her she most likely would have excelled, her brainpower would be unlimited, yet my decision to formula feed has put limits on her health.

So you see, I am not trying to put anyone down or to question their parenting skills. I am at best trying to offer a little piece of knowledge that will affect you and your child forever. The knowledge that nobody offered me. This is indeed an important issue and one that stays with you through time. Just as I will forever have to live with the fact that I did not breastfeed one of my children, a person that was breastfed as a baby lives forever with an advantage over someone that was formula fed. Lifelong health advantages are at the top of the list. "ABM (artifically breast milk) fed infants have an increased rated of: allergic disease, asthma, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, insulin-dependent diabetes, sepsis utis and acute leukemia" (Walker 107).

When we add into the equation the low IQ scores of formula fed children we really have to wonder how much more superior our race, the human race, would be if we fed all of our infants breastmilk exclusively. Would our brains become so enhanced after a few centuries that we would use them to their full capacity? There is no way to test this theory, unless of course we stop using formula and begin teaching our children that the breast is not only a sexual object; it is nature's way to feed a baby. A "container" from which human milk, nourishment and love is passed onto a child.

How many years would it take to de-sexualize the image of the woman’s breast in America? Most likely that could never happen. The image is sold to us as readily as the images of formula products. Our society pictures the breast as a sexual object. We believe that, as one formula-feeding friend of mine put it, "Breasts are for fun, not food." But is this really the image we want to portray to our daughters? Do we really want to deny them the experience of breastfeeding that Mother Nature has given to them? Wouldn’t we be happy knowing that if they breastfeed they will be healthier and they will recover quicker after birth? "It (breastfeeding) can reduce stress and anxiety, benefiting their physiology along with their ability to care for their child" (Allison). Breastfeeding mothers overall have a more fulfilling mothering experience. "The breast has two functions: it feeds babies and it plays a large part in the sexual arousal of both men and women. Why is it’s second function so stressed?" (Stoppard 28). Should we teach our children only that their breasts are sexual or should we tell them of their true purpose: Feeding a child and bonding.

What is bonding really? Connecting deeply with your child, holding him close, breathing in his scent and later remembering that scent when they are gone. Formula-fed infants miss out on so much of this connecting. They are held less and have less skin-to-skin contact with their mothers. That close and frequent contact with their mothers' skin has been proven to promote emotional and physical health. Instead of the soft palpable tissue of their mothers’ breast, they are offered a cold non-conforming artificial nipple attached to a hard plastic bottle. This is what they come to know when they need comfort, while a breastfed infant knows the soft toiuch and comfort of her mothers’ breast. The memory of breastfeeding lasts forever in the mother as well. Every time you touch your child and feel the softness of his skin you are reminded of the special closeness you shared. I personally have had to work extra hard in hopes to duplicate this feeling with my daughter who was formula fed, of course I love her just as much, but something seems to be missing.

Formula-fed babies deserve this bonding just as much as breastfed babies; yet they do not get it. We have all seen tiny babies in their infant seats with hard bottles propped up in front of them, no comforting arms, no motherly touch, just a baby with a bottle. This is a sad sight to see, and unfortunately one that we see all too often. While a bottle can easily be propped up with a pillow or blanket, with the breast there is no exception; the mother must hold and comfort her baby while breastfeeding. I think of this as a reminder for mothers in the early days after giving birth that she deserves a break. Every couple of hours when her child is hungry the opportunity presents itself for mom to rest. Formula-feeding mothers often miss these opportunities.

Instead of taking a moment to sit and relax while feeding their child, they often let someone else give the baby a bottle, thus losing the opportunity to sit down for a moment and bond. Instead of cherishing the experience they may begin to view feeding their child as a chore, making the bottles becomes just another thing on their "to do" list. I know how upsetting it can be when your baby is crying but you have to wait until the bottle heats up on the stove to give it to him. Meanwhile he is screaming at the top of his lungs because he is hungry. Formula fed babies spend much more time waiting to eat because formula needs to be prepared and heated before they can drink it. It takes much more time to make a bottle than to initiate breastfeeding. Is this fair to the baby, that the time his mother spent preparing his formula could have been spent breastfeeding had she given him the option? Unfortunately the baby is not the one who decides how he will get his next meal. Though if he were, he would most definitely choose his mothers' breast over a cold plastic bottle of factory made formula.

What about the baby who’s mother has run out of formula, has no money to buy more and has no choice but to give him water or straight cow’s milk? He will become malnourished and sick, even sometimes die. Yet, if he were being breastfed his mother would never have that problem. As long as you breastfeed frequently and correctly, it is impossible to run out of milk. But we all know how easy it is to run out of money. Remember the old saying, "the best things in life are free?" Breastmilk is a perfect example of this.

It is up to us as parents to choose for our children. Is it fair to them if we choose the inferior option of formula? Can we honestly offer something to our children knowing these risks, ignoring them and in essence accepting them as normal? Is it fair for us to turn our heads when it comes to the negative aspects because we so desperately believe the notion that the formula companies have ingrained in our minds, that "we can’t do it"? Why not say instead "we can do it." Tell the formula companies that we are onto their scheme, that we are no longer willing to pay for something that is unhealthy for our children, that instead we prefer to invest this money into their futures and offer them a superior form of milk; our own breast milk. This is what a woman’s breasts are made for.

We develop and carry another human life inside of our bodies for nine months, nourish it with no outside interventions, or media influence, simply with the instincts that Mother Nature has allotted us. And now we sit in the hospital, overjoyed to have had a fast labor, happy to see that our baby has been born healthy and alert. Eager to feed our child for the first time, we should not have to ask anyone permission to feed our own child. We should simply be confident bringing our child to our breast knowing that we have what it takes. Understanding this decision is important and by making the decision to breastfeed we are choosing Mother Nature's way. Human milk is for a human baby. After all, you are what you eat.

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