Breastfeeding :: Melamine and Lifestyle Challenges

Milk powder is one way people feed babies. Any companies have invested in production of milk powder to baby. It usually includes vitamins and minerals - healthy substances that all people need to be healthy. Many parents feed their babies with some form of milk powder. It is a popular substitute for breast milk. Many milk powder companies try to make their powder the most healthy, the most like a mother's breast milk.

Melamine is a chemical compound that has a number of industrial uses, including the production of laminates, glues, dinnerware, adhesives, molding compounds, coatings and flame retardants. Melamine is a name used both for the chemical and for the plastic made from it.
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On September 2008, a company Sanlu admitted it had done a terrible thing. It had sold dried milk powder containing a chemical called melamine. Adding the melamine chemical to the milk made the milk powder appear to have more protein. However, instead of containing the healthy protein, the powder contained a dangerous chemical that made thousands of babies sick.
The melamine in the powder caused many problems in the babies' kidneys. By December, the World Health Organization reported that almost 52,000 babies and young children had been put in the hospital because of the polluted milk powder. Babies had died.
This event caused many parents and doctors to question milk powder. This is especially because there is a perfect food for babies. The World Health Organization urges parents to feed their babies breast milk. The group says that babies should receive only breast milk until they are six months old. Then, babies should receive safe foods while also breastfeeding up to two years old or after.

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Many people already know that breast milk is the best food for a baby - even from the minute he is born. When a baby is born, his mother's body begins to produce a special form of milk called colostrum. This substance is different from the milk people usually think of.

Human colostrums are thick, sticky and yellowish. In humans, it has high concentrations of nutrients and antibodies, but it is small in quantity. Colostrum is high in carbohydrates, high in protein, high in antibodies, and low in fat (as human newborns may find fat difficult to digest). Newborns have very small digestive systems, and colostrum delivers its nutrients in a very concentrated low-volume form.
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Many people around the world believe colostrum is not as good as normal milk. They believe it is dirty, and they may not feed it to their baby. However, colostrum is an important part of a newborn baby's diet. Feeding a baby colostrum gives him good food. But it also encourages the breastfeeding process.
Continuing breastfeeding after birth has many good effects.

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Advantages of breastfeeding

Breast milk is always clean. Parents must when mixing milk powders with water, it happen that water is not always clean. Unclean water can carry many dangerous organisms that are deadly to babies.
Breast milk is also able to save lives. That is because breast milk carries antibodies from the mother. These antibodies protect the baby from many sicknesses that can kill children such as diarrhoea and pneumonia.
There are more than 400 nutrients in breast milk that are good for babies. No milk powder can copy them. But there is no melamine.

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Why do many parents choose to feed their babies with milk made from powder?

One reason is that breastfeeding can often be painful or difficult at first. It can take many weeks to become good at it. Many women do not get the information they need to become successful at breastfeeding. They may stop because they feel defeated. They may feel like it is too much work.
Milk powder companies spend a lot more money selling their products than the government spends encouraging breastfeeding.
Milk powder feeding also continues because parents believe it is just as good, or even better, for a baby than breast milk. The problem is, this is not true.
Many women believe they do not have enough milk to feed their babies, so they turn to milk powder.

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Posted using Partiko Android