Which is Better; Breastfeeding Or Formula

There has been this debate on breast milk and formula which is better. From exclusive breastfeeding, to combined feeding or formula only, children have grown into becoming adults with any of these type of feeding and they have grown to be healthy but then which of the two is better, breastfeeding or formula?

So if you have had a baby in the last decades, you must have been told by nurses and doctors that breastfeeding is king just like cash is king in our economy. The 6 months exclusive breastfeeding process must have been related to you which is the giving of breast milk to a child in the first 6 months of their life. You begin to ask yourself why it is a must to give your child exclusive breast milk especially when the baby just loves to suckle.

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Mammals are able to breastfeed their young and humans being mammals are naturally able to produce milk for our offspring nutritional and texture needs since they cannot process solid food except liquid food. Before formula, people who didn't have moms after birth would turn to wet nurses or people who breastfed other people's children for them, and when there were no lactating person around, people turned to other alternatives including animal milk, honey, soups, softened bread and so on and these alternative subjected the babies to falling sick and part of the reason was the feeding vessels used in feeding the infant.

Even when formula became a thing, most infants were still fed until the 1930s because of improper storage, and lack of required vitamins, minerals, and protein but in the 1930s, formula companies were regulated and were allowed to share their formula with physicians who would then recommend it to breastfeeding mothers who would then feed their children. This led to a drop in breastfeeding rate fast forward to the 1970s but the love for formula began to drop by the early 1990s and the WHO and UNICEF launched the baby-friendly hospital Initiative (BFHI) which was aimed at encouraging mothers to breastfeed babies properly and since the initiative breastfeeding rate has increased.

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We cannot deny that breastfed babies tend to fare better and formula babies even though they both look good. Data has shown that breastfed babies have lower incidence of childhood obesity, children who were properly breastfed can be protected against the later development of type 1 and type 2 diabetes, protect against Necrotizing Enterocolitis in premature babies, lowers the incidence of asthma, childhood leukemia, respiratory infections, and ear infections. Babies who are breastfed tend to do better later in childhood and adulthood.

After mentioning all the importance of breastfeeding based on data could we say that children with formula do not also enjoy these benefits? The vast majority of the data on long-term infant feeding results are observational and not like they were done in a controlled environment which cannot be possible due to ethical reasons. Let's not forget that there are other factors that can affect the children as they grow up including lifestyle, region, access to clean water in places where there is no access to water and so on.

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Other studies have been carried out on randomized people but there is one which is a randomized controlled feeding study where infants were either breastfed, given formula or both. The doctors didn't ask that some children be given formula rather they advised a group to breastfeed their infants well while they didn't say so to the other group. It was realized that there wasn't much difference between the both of them as they all had similar incidence of asthma, allergies, similar weight and blood pressure. With the study, it was seen that although breastfeeding is good, there are a lot of variable that affect children as they grow.

Before you tell that friend of yours that you are right and there is no difference between breastfeeding and formula, know that there is strong evidence supporting that breast milk has a significant protection against Necrotizing enterocolitis. So either you have access to breastmilk or formula, just feed your baby although formula are not yet developed to have everything that is in breast milk, it is still able to give the child the necessary nutrients compared to in the past.

For Further Reading

^{https://kidshealth.org/en/parents/breastfeed-supply.html
https://medcraveonline.com/JPNC/JPNC-02-00096.pdf
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2684040/
https://face2faceafrica.com/article/the-disturbing-history-of-enslaved
https://www.nytimes.com/1981/12/06/magazine/the-controversy
https://www.who.int/life-course/news/commentaries/breastfeeding-can-save-lives/en/
https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/79198/9789241505307_eng.pdf
https://www.babyfriendlyusa.org/news/baby-friendly-usa-celebrates
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4301835/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5295103/
https://publications.aap.org/pediatricsinreview
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/193490
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4025624/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0140673617305524}