I have been a bit upset by some of the comments made about goat's milk
 and wonder if I should share some of my personal experience with it.
 First of all, let me specify that I would not recommend the use of
 goat's milk in place of human milk, when human milk is available in
 sufficient quantities.  I do not believe that goat's milk is as good,
or nearly as good, as breastmilk. But I wish people would not assume
that everyone who chooses to use goat's milk instead of commercial
formula is an uneducated fool.  There are some situations where the
traditional remedies for things are not effective and we must either
settle for less than the desired outcome or be willing to try something
else.  It was such situations that led me to use goat's milk with some
of my adopted children.

 I first used goat milk with my fourth adopted child, Julia.  When we
got her, she was 6 1/2 months old, weighed 9 pounds, and was being fed
 mostly through a gastrostomy.  She had been on every formula
imaginable. The physicians who worked with her had poured tons of it
through her gastrostomy and even tried mixing it with less water to
increase the caloric content,  but she still did very poorly.  Her
weight was obviously a big concern, especially since she was a full-term
baby who came from larger than average birth parents.  There was
specific concern that her lack of growth had retarded her brain
development.  Also, her color concerned me.  She was pale and had a
grayish tinge to her skin.

 A friend told me how well her adopted son had done on raw certified
 goat's milk.  Since nothing that had been done so far had accomplished
 what we wanted, I decided to try it.  I gave her half goat's milk and
 half regular formula and, very shortly, her color improved
dramatically. (She also began gaining weight and catching up on her
development, which was largely due to having her emotional needs better
met, but may also have had something to do with her diet.) I continued
with this for two months, until we moved to a different state.  For
several weeks, I had no source of raw goat milk for her and she went
back to the same pale grayish color that she'd had before, which
improved when I was able to give her the goat milk again.  About the
time the source of goat milk dried up, (literally, because the goats
were about to kid) I finally succeeded at getting her nursing and
recieving some milk from me.

 I don't know what the specific ingredient was that helped.  I suspect
it was something that would be destroyed at high temperatures and not
 present in either canned or powdered goat milk or in commercial
 formulas.  I also wonder if whatever it was helped her oxygen level,
 which tended to be low because of her underdeveloped left lung.  AT any
 rate, there was something about it that made a difference which my M.D.
 husband noticed too.

 I used goat's milk again with our next child, Joseph, who was two weeks
 old when we adopted him.  He had not done well on cow's milk based
 formula, but was doing fine on soy.  However, a skin allergy prevents
me from using soy formula in the Lact-Aid.  I tried Nutramigen, but he
would have nothing to do with that bitter stuff.  I felt that my choices
 were either bottle feeding him soy formula or providing him with some
 breastmilk by nursing him with the Lact-Aid and supplementing with a
 goat milk formula.  To me, there was no question which was preferable!

 I made the formula of raw goat milk, water, acidophilus/bifidus,
 powdered lactose and folic acid.  He did extremely well on the
 combination of that and my milk.  We tested him for anemia and, after
 about six months, I started giving him some molasses for the iron
 content (I did not give it to him sooner because of the high sodium
 content).

 Please understand that I am not suggesting that anyone start telling
 their clients to feed their babies goat's milk.  I only ask that they
 consider the possibility that it may be a reasonable choice in some
 cases.

 Thanks,
 Darillyn Starr