I'm not criticising the practise in USA at all, only highlighting there is a difference.
Perhaps we've just never looked into it, as you must have done, & would like to know where to look.
Perhaps we do need to research into this, in UK,  but why reinvent the wheel?
I tried a google search without success, & hoped someone on this list might have the information I'm asking for.
I suspect we start off sterilising & boiling water for mixing, & simply continue as long as formula is used (up to 1 year)

I understand artificial powdered milk formula is not sterile (enterbacter sakazakii) & therefore it's use is always potentially a risky business.
It's preparation & storage needs great care if 24 hours supply is made up at once, as milk is an ideal medium for microbal growth.
Bottled water isn't sterile either, so why should we assume tap water is always safe unboiled for a baby?
I realise this could be a chain of events, if hygiene standards are poor, & I am just wary of being complacent with formula, the equipment used to give it, & the water used to mix it.


Those who choose to formula feed usually buy all the sterilising paraphernalia anyhow, (steam, microwave or at least a cold water steriliser) & it seems a waste of money if they only use it for a month.

I'm in total agreement about not trying to live in a sterile bubble, but what a baby picks up from the carpet & puts in his mouth isn't (hopefully) in contact for prolonged periods in their artificial milk formula.

Sheila Company

>Surely the people recommending the intervention bear the burden of
proof. Where is the evidence that children fed from clean, unsterile
equipment are falling ill at a higher rate than those fed from boiled
equipment? A lack of normal bacteria and other micro-organisms in the
environment has been strongly linked with higher levels of asthma,
allergies and possibly inflammatory bowel disease; so rampant
sterilisation is not necessarily a zero-risk intervention.

I could never see the point sterilising once the child is eating bits
of carpet fluff and dirt. Do we recommend that mothers wipe their
nipples with alcohol or iodine swabs before feeding their child? That
all food for babies is boiled or irradiated, then put on sterilised
plates and fed with sterilised spoons? Children don't need to be raised
in a bubble; just protected from high loads of pathogenic bacteria.

Lara Hopkins
family doctor>






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