Here is the letter I wrote to The Washington Post regarding their article on DHA in formula. If anyone else read the article on-line and would care to respond, the address is: The Washington Post Health Editor 1150 15th Street NW Washington, D.C. 20071 Dear Health Editor, In reference to Lawrence Proulx’s article in the March 4th edition of the Washington Post Health section, I am appalled at the reporter’s assumptions regarding human milk. After quoting a Harvard pediatrician as saying some minerals, including iron and zinc, are present in low levels in human milk, Mr. Proulx concludes that "babies might actually need more nutrients than breast milk provides". While it is true that human milk is low in iron, it is well absorbed by the breastfed baby. Almost 50% of iron in mother’s milk is absorbed by the infant. Compare this to 10% absorption of iron in cow’s milk and 4% from iron-fortified formula (Saarinen, U., Siimes, M., Dollman, P. Iron absorption in infants: high bioavailability of breast milk iron as indicated by the extrinsic tag method of iron absorption and by the concentration of serum ferritin. J Pediatr 1977; 91:36-39). As cow’s milk has been found to cause intestinal fissures, completely breastfed babies do not lose iron though their bowels (Woodruff, C. et al. Iron nutrition and the breastfed infant. J Pediatr 1977; 90: 36-38). The higher concentrations of lactose and vitamin C in human milk also influence iron absorption in the breastfed infant. Maternal iron serum levels do not appear to affect the iron levels in the milk. Increasing iron in the mother’s diet will not increase iron in her milk. Zinc is also more readily absorbed from human milk. Forty-one percent of zinc is absorbed from human milk versus 28% from cow’s milk, 31% from milk-based formula and 14% from soy formula (Lawrence, R. Breastfeeding: A Guide for the Medical Profession, 4th edition, 1994, pg. 124). Again, increasing zinc in the maternal diet will not alter levels in the milk. All mammals have low iron and zinc levels in their milk. I found it hard to believe that our design, either by God or by nature, would have such a serious flaw. If mother’s milk was truly inadequate, as Mr. Proulx would have us believe, our species, as well as all other mammals, would have become extinct long ago. Here are some other studies your health reporters might be interested in before reporting on inadequacies of human milk. Riordan, J., Countryman, BA, Basics of Breastfeeding. III. The biological specificity of breast milk. JOGN Nurs, 1980; 9:273-77. McMillan, JA., Landaw, SA., Oski, FA, Iron sufficiency in breast-fed infants and the availability of iron from human milk. Pediatrics, 1976, 58: 686-91. Campbell, N., The nutritional and immunological benefits of breast milk. Aust Nurs J, 1981, 10(11): 40-43. Hall, BH., Uniformity of human milk, Am J Clin Nutr, 1980, 32: 304-12. Sincerely, Kathy Koch