I love the research that's going on regarding formula v's breastmilk on Minti's member blogs at the moment.

That article is interesting, but curiosity struck me on one thing.

Most cases of food poisoning occur from lack of adequate storage, cleaning, and hygiene in the home. With formula fed babies, storage, cleaning, and hygiene regarding the milk, bottles, etc; is of utmost importance. I can't help but wonder how many of those deaths and illnesses aren't the fault of the formula so much as the parent/carer not taking adequate care when mixing, cleaning, feeding, etc???

No one has to worry about that with breastmilk, so of course the health risks with formula are going to be higher. I'm just wondering if anyone has ever done research into that aspect of it???

I don't know how many times I've seen a baby throw or drop a bottle on the ground and it gets shoved straight back in it's gob. I'm yet to see a breast hit the ground and get given straight back to a baby. LOL

There's a new one for debate and reseach for you.

Cheers, DA

I would be interested to read about the details of the research done also. I think that today the 'breast is best' message is coming across very clearly and I am sure that there are many mothers in my position of wanting to breast feed but unable for some reason or another. i really hope that the research is well founded because although this will reassure mothers who are breast feeding, I can also see the detrimental effect it would have on mothers who are bottle feeding their babies or who did bottlefeed other children. I know that I have beat myself up often enough when I couldn't breastfeed beyond the first 3 months and reading this article has given me another reason to feel that guilt. Research into formula feeding has been going on for years and I would want to see more studies about its harmful effects before I made up my mind one way or the other. Very good article and has given me a lot to think about and read up on.

xxGail

I read about half and I would be more interested as to who they used for these studies as well as how many were used and if it was all based in sepperate class structures or mixed.  One part of the article said that there was a higher risk of SIDS in low birth weight babies.  How can they possibly know if those same babies may have tragically passed away had they been breast fed as well.  What might be interesting is if we ran our own poll on minti.  We are a good cross section of class and western world population and it would be interesting to see what the odds are from all of us.  I didn't think there was enough info regarding the specifics of the tests for me to be anything more than sceptical.  Good of you to post it and make it available though Kim.  I'm not critisising you AT ALL, so please don't take it that way.  Just me and my fingers doing the typing before the brain gets to process too much of it... these damn fingers.

Chele= Aust. 2005, 1 baby. birth weight 6 pound 12 ounces. breast fed 3.5 months (badly & lost weight during this time) went onto Heinz formula and bloomed.

Something like that might allow enough info to get an idea.  Just a thought. xoxoxoxxo

wow its interesting isn't it, we are at the moment going through testing with charlie for his immune system and he was a formula baby but that was cause of me and my milk, thanks for the link it was very interesting, and if you don't mind i have added it to my advice that i did on the immune system,

hugs and kisses