2023-06-03 13:23:00
The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that babies be fed exclusively with breast milk for the first six months of life and then it is used as a supplement in their diet until the age of two, as long as the mother can breastfeed and has adequate support from her family and other social conditions.
“It is the ideal food for infants. It is safe and clean and contains antibodies that protect against many diseases typical of childhood. In addition, it supplies all the energy and nutrients a child needs during the first months of life, and continues to provide up to half or more of a child’s nutritional needs during the second half of the first year, and up to a third during the second year. “, highlights the WHO
“Breastfed children show a better performance on intelligence tests they are less likely to become overweight or obese and, later in life, to develop diabetes. Women who breastfeed also have a lower risk of breast and ovarian cancer,” she adds in her lactation recommendations.
However, there are cases in which mothers, either for medical or personal reasons, cannot breastfeed their children or use donated breast milk. In this situations, Formula milk “is a valid and safe option from a scientific point of view.”
“The best nutrition for children is breast milk. However, we are far from reaching at least the 50% of children who are breastfed by 2025. Right now, we are only at 41%”, lamented the executive director of Medical and Nutritional Sciences in Early Life at Danone Nutricia, Rocío Martín, in a meeting with the media in Utrecht (The Netherlands).
The expert works at the company’s Research and Innovation Center in Utrecht, which will be ten years old in 2023. With about 500 employees, it has science and technology laboratories, a pilot plant for small-scale production, and a sensory laboratory that has the participation of families and patients to try their infant formula milk.
The importance of the first 1,000 days of a baby
Rocío Martín defends, like the WHO, that “what happens in the first years of life has a impact on children’s health when they are adults.” “Nutrition is so important because everything we eat reaches the stomach and intestines. More than 70% of the cells of the immune system are in the gastrointestinal tract and there are 100 million neurons in the intestine”, he highlighted.
The head of the Danone Nutricia Microbiology team in Utrecht, Guus Roeselers, shares the same opinion: “A baby is immature, it is not a small adult. Organs have yet to developjust like the immune system, the intestinal microbiota, the brain, the digestive system, the metabolism, the bones…”.
For this reason, it has valued the importance of the “first 1,000 days of life” of a baby for its health: “The first 1,000 days lay the foundation for lifelong health.” At this point, breast milk is key, as recalled by the director of Research and Analytical Science of Breast Milk, Medical and Nutritional Science at Danone Nutricia, Bernd Stahl.
“Breast milk starts after birth, although there is already evidence that parts of the milk can be found in the amniotic fluid where the baby is in the placenta. If babies take breast milk well, even though it is not a medicine, are more prepared to deal with infections and diseases“, has argued this expert.
Guus Roeselers adds that breast milk is particularly good for babies’ intestinal microbiota, that is, the bacteria in their gut. “A good microbiota helps digest food, produces some vitamins such as B12 and K, regulates energy metabolism, defends us against dangerous microorganisms and has an influence on the communication between the brain and the intestine”, he explained.
According to Rocio Martin, Almost 90% of breast milk is water. Of the remaining 10%, half is lactose, a “fundamental component because it provides energy to children.” The second ingredient is fats. The third, and one of the most important, are the oligosaccharides. Finally, there are proteins and a “small part” that are bacteria and metabolites.
Los oligosaccharides of breast milk (HMO) can help develop the gut microbiota by serving as a food source for the good bacteria in the gut. Naturally present in breast milk, they have evolved over thousands of years, and preclinical and clinical studies suggest that are key to promoting the ‘good’ bacteria of the microbiota.
Breast milk and formula: “they will never be identical”
Thus, it is clear that feeding the baby during the first six months of life is essential, either through breast milk or formula. However, science shows that these two options are “not identical” and it looks like they “never will be”according to Bernd Stahl, who is also an associate professor in the Chemical Biology and Drug Development Group at the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Utrecht University (The Netherlands).
“Breast milk is much more complex than formula. We need a lot of research to get to that point. There’s a long way to go. If we find 30,000 to 50,000 components in breast milk, A lot of research needs to be done to be able to replicate them.”have argued Bernd Stahl and Rocío Martín.
In any case, beyond this enormous scientific reason, the two experts have pointed out that it is “impossible to replicate breast milk” because “It is adapted to the stage of pregnancy and the mother’s diet.” Also, if we compare two breast milk from two different mothers, they will not be identical either, even if they look alike. Hence the difficulty of establishing a pattern that allows it to be replicated to make infant formula milk.
Despite all these drawbacks, science has managed to advance a lot in the last 100 years, to the point that formula milk is no longer incorporates many of the characteristics of the maternalas a general composition in broad strokes.
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