Cows Milk for Calves, Human Milk for Humans
The most important gift a new mother can provide her baby —more than an elaborate wardrobe and a fancy crib, more than a good education—is human milk. If a mother is capable of conceiving and delivering a living human, she is competent enough to nurse him. While other sources are used to make artificial formulas (such as goat's milk and soy), comparisons with cow's milk shows just how good mother's milk can be.
Like clothing, shoes and pet rocks, trends come and go. One of the most devastating rages was the shift to bottle feeding in the early part of this century. With the help of companies that made the product, some doctors began telling new mothers that bottle feeding with a artificial formula was actually better than breast feeding. Fortunately, that trend is fading, but not before a couple of generations were affected.
A newborn, following the stress of birth, first experiences the structural, chemical and mental potential through the mother by way of nursing.
The structural benefits include the development of the activating of the physical aspect of the intestines. In addition, the neuromuscular mechanisms in the head and neck, and jaw are important for balance and locomotion, are developed by nursing. The proper development of these areas is also the foundation for the ability to develop speech and reading, hearing acuity, and learning. These areas can't develop as well with bottle feeding.
The chemical component of human milk involves the obvious: nutrition. But this substance is more than just milk. It's more like living tissue, such as blood, containing enzymes, as well as the post-birth continuation of a necessary extension which began before birth.
The fat and protein content of human milk provides for efficient energy and growth. This is also true of cow's milk, but the energy and growth requirements of a calf are obviously quite different. The human growth rate, for example, is such that a newborn will double his weight in about 180 days, while the calf accomplishes this in only 47 days. While this is partly reflected in the genetic structure, the nutritional stimulation comes from the milk. The incidence of overweight children has increased since the trend to bottle feeding started. Also, the fat content in human milk is a perfect balance of both saturated and unsaturated fats, and is digested and utilized efficiently. Cow's milk contains twice the saturated fat as unsaturated, and its use in formulas parallel the significant increase in cardiovascular disease. And, cow's milk in the human intestine reacts differently. Because the fat content is not the same as human milk, fats in cow's milk combine with calcium in the intestine to form insoluble soaps, with a lose of both the fat and calcium from the intestine. And, only human milk is very high in lipase, an enzyme which digests fat.
Perhaps the most important contribution human milk provides for the new baby's health is immunity. While half the baby's immune function developed in utero, the other half must come from mother's milk. Human milk provides substances specific for the protection of the newborn. These protein substances, including IgM, IgG, IgA and others are very concentrated in the colostrum the milk-like substance expressed by the mother in the first few days of nursing These immune substances, not available to the baby from cow's milk, provide protection against both bacterial and viral infections, including salmonella, polio, influenza and E coli. This protection is effective throughout the baby's body. Human milk also helps in the development of "good" bacteria in the lower intestine. This natural "flora" is also different between cow and human. It protects against "bad" bacterial infection in the intestine and also produces vitamins such as biotin and vitamin B-12.
A baby born to a new world only knows one thing: its mother. The mental/emotional feature of nursing is vital to the development of this human trait in both mother and child.
There are several other aspects of nursing which should be mentioned:
1. The nursing mother is provided with some degree of natural birth control—ovulation ceases for a period which varies with the frequency of nursing. While this is not 100% (most birth control methods aren't) it is a natural protection from becoming pregnant too quickly.
2. While formula makers are promoting their artificial products to millions of industrialized mothers, they've been doing the same to third world women as well. In addition to the devastating health effects of the newborn population, the natural birth control effect of nursing is lost, giving rise to even more pregnancies.
3. About half of all newborns develop normal jaundice, as indicated by a slight yellowing of the skin and eyeballs. This is not harmful. It appears by the fourth day of life, disappearing on its own in about a week. Breast fed babies sometimes remain jaundiced a little longer.
4. A mother who doesn't nurse her baby is more likely to maintain fat storage after pregnancy. That's because much of the fat stored during pregnancy is needed for the nursing process.
The requirements of a newborn human are unique and highly specific. This is true with all species. Feeding a human baby a formula based on the milk of another animal is unreasonable and illogical; it's like feeding a newborn calf human milk.
For more information on this subject, contact: La Leche League International 9616 Minneapolis Ave. Franklin Park, Illinois 60131.
The Milk Debate Heats Up
(By Jeff Moss, D.D.S., reprinted with permission)
Most of the time we find ourselves in the unenviable position of having to correct the untruths, half-truths and semi-truths that the average individual receives regularly from newspapers across the country. But now they have put us in the very unique position of having the opportunity to say, "l told you so." For, with, of all people, Dr. Benjamin Spock as a vehicle, our statements concerning the dangers of milk consumption have broken through the suffocating blanket of this country's health care prejudice with a bang. While no one likes to hear "I told you so," it is certainly difficult to resist the temptations to say it after one reads an Associated Press report that appeared on the front page of the September 29, 1992 edition of our local newspaper, the Daily Hampshire Gazette:
"'Parents have been doing their duty as they were taught by medicine and dietetics and forcing milk (on their children). We have to get parents over that,' Spock said in a telephone interview Monday."
The article goes on to discuss the work of Dr. Frank A. Oski director of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University and his comments on the issue.
"Oski, who wrote a book in 1977 called 'Don't Drink Your Milk,' said at a conference Monday in Baltimore that milk's reputation as a calcium-rich food that will help children grow big and strong is largely undeserved. Other foods, such as kale, broccoli or fish, provide more calcium without the fat in milk, he said. There is nothing unique about milk, regarding its nutritional benefits, that should make you want to drink it,' Oski said. 'There's no reason for us to spend lots of money to give milk to kids when it doesn't do them any good."'
As you might expect, this condemnation led to an immediate and highly vocal protest from various factions in the health care community. The following appeared on the front page of the September 30, 1992 USA Today:
"'We are not going to tell schools to stop serving milk,' says Phil Shanholtzer of the Department of Agriculture. 'Milk is not a dangerous product,' says Felicia Busch of the American Dietetic Association. 'For the general population, this is just not an appropriate piece 'of advice.' 'Substantial research shows milk is an excellent source of calcium,' says Sandra Raymond of the National Osteoporosis Foundation."
Where does the truth lie? Can we now say with absolute certainty that milk has absolutely no health benefits for anyone? To answer these questions I must again go to a statement that has been a running theme in [my] newsletters over the years: Truth rarely lies in the camps of the extremists, but somewhere in between. In the time I have been writing this newsletter I have tried to expose both sides of the milk issue, reporting studies that, on one hand, show that milk is related to many childhood maladies due to its allergenicity and low digestibility, and, on the other hand, show milk to be an adequate delivery mechanism for calcium and vitamin D. Perhaps Dr. Spock realized that his initial position was a bit too extreme when, as reported in the Wednesday, September 30, 1992 edition of the New York Times, he seemed to create some distance between himself and the position held by The Physicians Committee on Responsible Medicine (PCRM), whose stance against milk he initially supported:
"The presence of Dr. Benjamin Spock on the panel at the news conference appeared to lend weight to the committee's contentions and recommendations. But in a telephone interview yesterday (Tuesday), Dr. Spock made it clear that he agreed only that breast-feeding is the preferred method of infant feeding and that whole milk from cows should not be given to infants under a year old because of the risk of anemia."
Interestingly enough, even opponents of the position held by the PCRM agree that milk should not be given to infants under one year of age. According to the September 30,1992 edition of USA Today:
"Cow's milk should not be given under age 1, says the American Academy of Pediatrics."
I feel that the day to resolving this issue, like many other issues in clinical nutrition, requires consideration of two important concepts of which you may already be familiar: biochemical individuality and moderation. Some people have thrived and will continue to thrive on moderate amounts of cow's milk. Others will, to varying degrees, find milk quite detrimental to their health. To do our work most effectively, we must avoid the temptation to issue blanket condemnations and endorsements and strive to find out which people fit into which groups.
The greatest value of this past week's media debate on milk, even though the issue has not been satisfactorily resolved, is that information on milk's ill-effects has, after many years of suppression, found the light of day. Hopefully, the propaganda machine built by the milk producers of America has finally been counterbalanced so that intelligent, prejudice free debate on a very complicated issue can now begin. This type of debate will benefit all people, no matter what their beliefs.