On 06/02/2012 20:42, Julie Conaway wrote:
> I'm introducing some new measures to decrease formula supplementation in our hospital, and I found a patient education handout on the California Dept. of Public Health website that lists risks of formula supplementation.  It says:
>
> Exclusively breastfeeding a healthy term baby:
> 1.	encourages early milk production (supplementation may delay milk production)
> 2.	decreases the chance of jaundice
> 3.	provides better weight gain
>
> I don't quite understand #2 and #3, and I know they will be questioned by our staff.  Breastfed infants do have more jaundice and more weight loss compared to formula fed infants.  But this statement is comparing breastfed / formula supplemented babies to exclusively breastfed babies...correct?  So because of #1 (encourages early milk production), #2 and #3 are true.  Do I have it?
>
> Can anyone point me to references of this?
>
Er.... my first question would have to be 'Compared to what?' and my 
second would be 'In what situation?'  Is this looking at babies who 
aren't getting enough breast milk in the early days, or at babies who are?

If a baby isn't getting enough milk from breastfeeding, supplementation 
actually seems to decrease the chances of jaundice, rather than increase 
- at least according to the study I found 
(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3171266).  Maybe someone else knows 
of some other research that shows a different outcome, but that's what I 
could find on Pubmed.  It also doesn't make sense to claim that a baby 
getting less milk will gain weight faster than one who's getting more.

If a baby *is* getting enough milk from breastfeeding, supplementation 
would simply replace some of the breastmilk in its diet with formula.  
While this can potentially, as you say, have undesirable consequences in 
terms of #1, I can't see that it would make a difference to either #2 or #3.

Frankly, I think they're wrong.  Might be worth contacting the hospital 
it came from to see whether anyone remembers how that was originally 
thought up, but, since it seems to be about eight years old, I suspect 
its origins are lost in the mists of time.  Unless anyone knows anything 
else to back this up, I'd just take the other points and leave those two 
out.


Best wishes,

Sarah

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