For the newborn, there is no better food than breast milk . However, it is also true that a mother may find it impossible to feed her baby to the breast or she may simply decide not to breastfeed and resort to so-called artificial feeding .
When the mother does not breastfeed ...
In that case what is the best solution? This question is answered by the well-known Spanish pediatrician Carlos Gonzales, from the pages of his book A Gift for a Lifetime :
" I saw parents who seemed determined to give their child anything but artificial milk [...] soy milk, almond milk, rice milk, goat's milk. Please do not endanger your child's health with exotic inventions. It is a century that the industry is doing research and improving artificial milk, and there is a very strict international legislation that regulates its composition. When a child cannot take breast milk, it is best to give him suitable milk for infants . "
How to overcome the difficulties of breastfeeding
The formulated milks
Formulated milk or better, the formulated milks, since there are several on the market, are products that start from cow's milk, modified to be suitable for the digestive and metabolic characteristics of newborns .
Without these changes, cow's milk cannot be considered a suitable food for infants and cannot be introduced into the children's diet until one year of age.
In fact, cow's milk has a protein concentration equal to four times that of mother's milk and numerous other characteristics that make it inadequate for the metabolism of a child under 12 months of age, when the kidneys and digestive system are not yet mature enough to metabolize cow's milk.
The production of formulated milk is subject to very strict regulations; there are clear parameters of composition and starting formulas that guarantee absolute safety.
For the feeding of preterm infants, who have particular nutritional needs, there are specific formulas that differ from those recommended for the full-term newborn and which have a higher caloric density.
