First Feedings

For newborns, all nutrition comes either through milk from the breast or through a formula from a factory. This will be the core of the diet for the entire first year, so if breastfeeding can be an option for you, it’s important to make this choice very carefully. Both can have a significant impact on the health of the child and on the world.

Breast Milk

Human milk is precisely optimum for human infants. You can see this even in their stool. By two months of age, breastfed babies are using this food so efficiently that they produce little waste. It can be normal for a breastfed baby to go a week or more without a stool.

This ideal design is reflected in improved health. Many studies have found that breastfed babies have fewer illnesses and less severe illnesses than do formula-fed babies. Research reported by the American Academy of Pediatrics,¹ for instance, shows that there is “strong evidence” supporting the findings that breast milk reduces the incidence or severity of such diseases as

Diarrhea
Lower respiratory infections
Ear infections
Bacterial meningitis
Urinary tract infections

In addition to supporting a baby’s growth and development, breastfeeding can also expand the baby’s taste palate for nutritious foods. When Mom eats a variety of flavorful and nutritious foods, her baby will taste them in the breast milk and will be more open to eating those same foods during his lifetime.

The health benefits of breastfeeding are not just for the baby. Mother Nature bestows health advantages to breastfeeding moms, too. The following are some of these gifts:²

Right after birth, breastfeeding helps contract the uterus.
Breastfeeding helps shed the extra pounds of the pregnancy.
It releases hormones such as oxytocin and prolactin that can be associated with a general feeling of well-being and contentment (and increased maternal behavior).³ The hormones can also help you feel relaxed after milk let-down.⁴
Women who have breastfed for many months have significantly lower rates of urinary tract infections; osteoporosis; and breast, ovarian, and uterine cancers.

It’s fitting that such a natural food is also exceptionally good for the environment. Its delivery system is the most efficient on the planet: no pollution is caused in its transport (talk about eating local!), and it neither uses packaging nor produces industrial waste.

Baby formula production, packaging, and delivery, in contrast, cause a tremendous amount of industrial waste:⁵

The mechanical production of baby formula causes air pollution and uses natural resources for its fuel.

Formula is then shipped great distances to the consumer market—resulting in gasoline consumption, vehicle exhaust, and other unnecessary pollution.
Tin, paper, and plastic used in packaging baby formula create even more pollution.
Bottles and nipples that require plastic, glass, rubber, and silicon add to the production and disposal pollution problems. The popularity of disposable bottles and liners makes this a major problem.
Because these materials involved in formula-feeding a baby are rarely recycled, their disposal in landfill or through incineration causes even more pollution.

Infant Formula

You may be surprised to hear that commercial infant formulas can be a green choice in some circumstances. These formulas have been developed to substitute for breast milk when nursing is impractical, undesirable, or even impossible due to physical illness, separation, or adoption. I am deeply grateful for such formulas because my wife’s critical illness once prevented my son from breastfeeding (they are both vibrant and healthy today). I’m glad to report that some of today’s infant formulas are very good substitutes for mother’s milk. ....read more

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