The "help" bottle in maternity units increases the risk of allergy to cow's milk protein

In November 2016 I published a post in which I explained how the "help" bottles of maternity hospitals, which in many cases are known as "pirate bottle", because it is given to babies without the mother knowing, and normally without actually needing the baby, it was causing many cases of cow's milk protein allergy (APLV).

Now, more than a year later, we tell you that a study that is being carried out in the Guadalajara hospital supports this conclusion by considering, for now, the hypothesis that says giving artificial milk to babies (which comes from cow's milk and contains those proteins), and then continues with exclusive breastfeeding, increases the risk that the body will react again.

An exhibition that prepares the body to react

As we read in Medical Writing, the main coordinator of the research, Gonzalo Galicia, ensures that the risk happens by giving artificial milk to a baby who will then breastfeed exclusively for months. When you give a bottle again, the immune memory is stimulated, and you are more likely to have an allergy.

This, in Christian, could be summarized as follows:

Cow's milk is not a food we tolerate because yes, because It is not a food of our kind, and our body has to accept it. The intestine of a baby has the mission of defending it against dangerous substances from others, so when something new arrives it has to decide if it is a danger (causing an immune response) or if it is not.

Thus, when a food arrives for the first time, the intestine decides if it is going to be an antigen (strange food) "friend", or if you will consider "enemy". This difference is difficult to explain because it is not even well known why it occurs: it is said that it is something multifactorial that depends on the genetic predisposition to be allergic to any food, the nature of the food, the amount it receives, the frequency, the age when consuming it for the first time, the immunological state of the baby (that is not ill), if the mother consumed that pregnant food, if she consumed it while breastfeeding, etc.

Well, apparently, the first bottles of artificial milk are enough to provoke the opposite response in some babies, but are insufficient to cause food tolerance. In other words, if they continue to take a bottle more days, more times, the risk of allergy would be less than if the bottle is removed and then continued with exclusive breastfeeding.

But this does not mean that it is better to do a mixed breastfeeding to avoid allergy, but that the bottles should be limited, in the first days, to the essential: that pirate bottles no longer exist and that in case of needing supplement, try whenever it is of breast milk, and if it is to be artificial milk, assess the possibility of it being hydrolyzed, so that the baby's body does not become "defensive."

They saw that the theory is confirmed

Both explain the hypothesis, it turns out that I was not giving you the study data. To carry it out, a sample of 77 children diagnosed with APLV was taken to see if there were any perinatal factors associated with the diagnosis. They saw that there was an association between the initial bottle of supplement and the diagnosis, and that is why they will now do a new investigation with a control group to establish if there is causation, or if there really is no relationship.

In the words of Galicia:

The choice of subject was motivated by the fact that cow's milk allergy is increasingly prevalent and we wanted to assess what factors could be influencing its appearance from the first days of the child's life. The objective is to avoid its appearance and that specialists can identify early the symptoms of a pathology that occasionally takes time to identify and usually entails a large health expenditure, in addition to the decrease in the health and well-being of the child.

But do you really give "pirate" bottles?

I have seen them. And also many mothers (because I speak daily with many mothers and fathers on social networks and in the consultation) have told me about it. I'm sure it happens every time in fewer hospitals, but yes, many babies reach the arms of their mothers with a stomach full of a bottle that nobody asked for, not even the baby.

Either that, or every three hours a nurse or assistant appears with a bottle and leaves it on the table, in case you want to give it, whether you are giving a bottle, whether you are trying to breastfeed exclusively.

And wouldn't it be better to help mothers breastfeed?

Of course. We talk about women who will then do exclusive breastfeeding, or at least they will try. If they are having difficulties, the logical thing is that they receive the best attention, and that someone breastfeeding expert start offering solutionsprecisely to reduce as much as possible supplementation with artificial milk.

If it is finally necessary (because eye, the baby's life matters more than a possible future allergy), it is supplemented with glass, with relator or with syringe (syringe finger maneuver), to avoid as much as possible the confusion between the nipple and the nipple.

Meanwhile, the possible causes of needing a supplement are studied and the mother's milk extraction is promoted to achieve the ultimate goal, which is to achieve exclusive successful breastfeeding.

To reduce the risk of allergy when supplementing, perhaps the best option is with hydrolyzed milk, since as it says Gonzalo Galicia, it is a milk "whose protein goes in such small parts that our immune system is not able to identify it and does not generate that memory".

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