Articles labeled: formula feeding

Two North Carolina birthing centers are being applauded by breastfeeding advocates for refusing to accept free infant formula to pass on to their patients.

UNC Health Care stopped distributing the bags in late June. The Women’s Birth and Wellness Center in Chapel Hill never gave away the bags.

The Golden Bow Awards are from the nonprofit N.C. Breast-feeding Coalition, a group of lactation consultants, nurses and other women’s health professionals.

Coalition members started the campaign, a version of a national effort to ban the bags, in February. Four other hospitals in North Carolina received the award earlier this year.

Studies show that the free bags make it easier for new moms to stop breast-feeding.

Emily Taylor of the the Center for Infant and Young Child Feeding and Care at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill said mothers perceive the free bags and formula as an endorsement of a particular brand from the hospital.

Well this ought to make for some interesting fodder on the feeding choices debate boards. Researchers in London found that premature infants that were fed enriched formula consistently outperformed other preemies on IQ tests. The other infants were fed either regular formula, “bank” breast milk, or a mix of the breast milk and formula.

Their latest study, published in Pediatric Research, shows the benefits continue into the teenage years.

It also found a particular part of the brain is better developed in those given the enriched milk.

The team from Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children and the UCL Institute of Child Health note that while nutrition has been linked with behaviour, their findings are among the first to show how early feeding may even alter brain structure.

Lead researcher Dr Elizabeth Isaacs said: “It is not clear whether this just relates to preterm infants, who have very specific development issues.

“But obviously a next question would be if there are any wider implications, both for feeding beyond those first few weeks, and for babies who are born at term.”

Interesting.

The Lactivist community must be reeling from this news. I wonder how they’re gonna spin it.

TORONTO (CP) — The first ever randomized trial to look at the much debated question of whether breastfeeding protects an infant from developing asthma and allergies found that children who were breastfed as babies were not at a lower risk of developing these conditions.

In fact, children whose mothers were in the group urged to continue to breastfeed their children exclusively were more likely to test positive later for five common allergies - dust mites, cat dander, birch and grass pollens and fungi.