News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Food security and the coming storm. Parent comment

Re:Food security and the coming storm by hn_throwaway_99 on Monday May 30, 2022 @11:47AM (#31560237)
I mean, that makes sense, but on the other hand, I'm pretty sure human breast milk doesn't change composition as a child ages. If it's possible to develop a formula that is "close to human breast milk as possible", the age range really shouldn't matter.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Food security and the coming storm by geoduck14 on Monday May 30, 2022 @07:48PM (#31564816)
Actually, it changes a LOT over time. I'm a little removed from the breast feeding days, so I had to look it up. Here is a cool article [0].

I'll summarize some of the cool points. Breast milk changes to respond to 3 distinct ages of the baby. Newborn to 3ish days. 3ish days to 1 year. 1 year to "the end".

Milk changes to respond to growth spurts of your baby!

Milk changes to provide antibodies. Not covered in this article: it is hypothesized that kissing your baby can give the mom bacteria on the baby - and then the mom makes the antibodies for bacteria the baby was exposed to.

Milk changes throughout the day!

Milk changes in the middle of breast feeding

That's it. Those are the ones I enjoyed. Here is the link!!

[0] https://www.todaysparent.com/baby/breastfeeding/magical-ways...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Food security and the coming storm by SkyPuncher on Monday May 30, 2022 @08:50PM (#31565117)
Regardless of whether the formula changes/doesn't change is essentially irrelevant. As a baby grows, their diet grows as well. A toddler can get by on infant formula (though less than optimal).

This situation primarily impacts 0 to 4 months olds and secondarily 4 to 6 months old. It's less than ideal fora 6 to 12 month old to use a sub-par diet, but it's much less critical than in a newborn.

Basically, the newborn range is growing so quickly that small deficiency can have huge cascading effects. Old babies are a bit more resilient because they're growing a bit slower (relatively) and have more buffer in their reserves for certain things.

In my opinion, what you're arguing is equivalent to saying "children should be allowed to drink alcohol. If it's safe for adults, it's safe for children".

[ Parent | on HN ]