One of the most controversial topics surrounding the issue of breastfeeding is what a woman should do if she finds herself unable to nurse her baby. An even more prickly subject is whether learning how to make homemade baby formula is a good idea.
I myself nursed all three of my children for an extended period of time. The first two were nursed for two years and the third for three and a half years. I practiced parent led weaning for the first 2 children as I did not want to be nursing and pregnant at the same time. For my third and youngest child, I simply allowed her to wean herself whenever she chose.
I’ve often considered what I would have done should I have found myself unable to nurse. Certainly commercial formulas are not a good option as these highly processed powders are loaded with rancid vegetable oils and denatured proteins. Even the organic baby formulas on the market should be avoided for this reason.
Is Homemade Formula Superior to Donor Breastmilk?
What about homemade baby formula made with milk, kefir, or yogurt from grassfed cows or free roaming, foraging goats? Would this formula be superior to human breastmilk from a donor milk bank?
To me, most folks’ opinion on this issue basically boils down to whether they feel that human breastmilk is suitable for an infant regardless of the diet of the Mother. I am of the persuasion that the breastfeeding Mother’s diet is critical to the nutrient density of her breastmilk. I wrote about this in an article commenting on the news story about a vegan Mother whose breastfed baby died.
Nutrient starved Mother = nutrient poor breastmilk
Science is backing this up. Published 2019 research found that the diversity of beneficial probiotics varies greatly from woman to woman perhaps due to dietary factors.
Color and Creamline of Breastmilk Varies Based on Diet
I know from personal experience how my diet affected the color and thickness of my breastmilk. With my first child, I ate everything organic but did not consume many traditional fats or sacred foods. My breastmilk was white with little cream on the top. My baby was also hungry all the time and wanted to nurse frequently. He also spit up a lot which I now know was my consumption of pasteurized organic dairy and improperly prepared grains during that time.
With my next 2 children, my breastmilk went from white to beige and had considerably more fat simply by adding lots of butter, cream, egg yolks, grassfed meat, and fish eggs to my diet. As an added bonus, my children were satisfied more quickly and stayed full much longer between feedings. They also never spit up unless I ate out at a restaurant or had consumed some low quality, non-Traditionally prepared food for whatever reason.
I sure wish I had frozen a few ounces of that breastmilk before and after my Real Food conversion. A picture would have been worth a thousand words!
Few Breastfeeding Women Follow a Real Food, Traditional Diet
Because the vast majority of women do not follow a Real Food, Traditional diet and because I so clearly observed the difference in my own breastmilk when I made the change myself, I would have chosen to make a homemade baby formula with raw milk from grassfed cows instead of seeking donor breastmilk.
To me, it would have been way too risky and far too likely that the donor breastmilk would have come from Moms drinking coffee or diet drinks, eating fast food, taking over the counter prescription drugs and the like. At least with grassfed cows, you know what they are eating and that they aren’t taking any drugs!
Holder Method of Pasteurization
Then there’s also the huge problem that many donor milk banks pasteurize the breastmilk!
And, no, the “Holder method of pasteurization” used by breastmilk banks is just as damaging as conventional pasteurization at dairy plants.
Yes, the Holder method is not as high (62.5ºC/144.5ºF) as flash pasteurization (71ºC/160ºF or higher), but all the enzymes and probiotics are still destroyed at 48ºC/118ºF, so don’t buy that line frequently spouted by donor bank advocates.
I give my opinion on this topic with one caveat.
If I could have found a few Moms that I knew who were eating a Real Food diet, I definitely would have accepted their breastmilk donations for my child if necessary.
But, from a donor milk bank, this information is 100% unknown. And, with Real Food Moms in the minority, using donor milk is just not worth the risk.
What about you? Would you have chosen homemade formula or a donor breastmilk bank? Why or why not?
Hi Sarah,
In your post about ditching protein powders you mentioned that gelatin has a small amount of MSG. Would putting this in a homemade formula be dangerous at all? Or is the amount small enough to handle. Thanks(:
It’s fine. Even homemade broth and fermented foods have small amounts of MSG. Unless someone is super sensitive these small amounts are not a problem for most individuals.
I think it’s important to note that milk from the milk banks is pasteurized, which WILL destroy the beneficial immunological components to the milk. It’s still species-specific, but not nearly as beneficial as milk straight from a mother. That is a major consideration here, because your baby will NOT be really getting the benefits of breastmilk in this case…there is a lot missing.
Another factor in an unsatisfied first baby can simply be not a large storage capacity that is increased as the breast adds more tissue and ducts with a consecutive pregnancy. I have heard this anecdotally by many of my friends who had very small breasts that have increased a cup size with each pregnancy. A lack of healthy fats, obviously, but not the only reason for a baby that nurses frequently. I just want to reiterate that nourshing a mother and doing the best you can to find a doner is better than substituting another mammals milk in the the first year. Every year formula companies have to add another critical nutrient to the formula as they realize what is missing…..how can you be so confident in your formulas?
I will also add my sister in law gave birth six weeks ago and has had to supplement due to hypothyroidism for 16 years. She is So thankful for folks who have donated milk and I am encouraging her to pursue NT and Gaps diet to address her health issues and get her healed and healthy for the next baby.
No, this is the most inane assumption from NT. Even a woman with poor nutrition makes a LIVING substance with white blood cells, immunoglobins and a hundred other things critical to a babies development. And the breast will starve the mother and give it to the baby because it is designed so well. This is the ONLY point I disagree with in the entirety of NT and Ms. Fallon. This angers me greatly, that you would undermine that the best food for a baby with a replacement, processed, dead substance is somehow better. This totally leers off the whole foods logic. And breastfeeding for a extended period of time protects a woman from various sexual cancers, rests her reproductive system and the contents of the milk only CONCENTRATE as a child ages, no decrease in superiority. Please, please do research on kellymom.com and get up to date on this. The absolute focus should be nourishing a mother and not making her feel insufficient. Even her worst breast milk is irreplaceable.
A Former maternity nurse, homebirther to five, breastfeeding for TEN years and awaiting number six.
If this is true, why did the vegan breastfeeding mother’s baby die then?
That baby never would have died if given the homemade raw grassfed milk formula.
Why do you call raw milk formula dead? Pasteurized breast milk is more “dead.”
You should be ashamed of yourself. There is NOTHING better for a baby than breast milk. End of Story. You have the option of getting breast milk from a donor, not just a bank. You just discredited breast milk so people will make YOUR formula. You are no better than Similac.. One vegan baby died.. it is not a common and increasing problem. God knew what he was doing when he created breast. Women live off of rice alone in some countries and successfully feed their child. You blaming the mother of a dead child for her child’s death is rude, disgusting, and downright insensitive.
I’m not familiar with the story, but many mother’s today are limiting their children’s intake of breastmilk to certain amounts of time and times of day even though it’s their child’s only source of nutrition and I personally know several mother’s whose children have been labeled ‘failure to thrive’ because of how they were nursing. What do you know about how this mother nursed her baby other than her diet?
“This totally leers off the whole foods logic. And breastfeeding for a extended period of time protects a woman from various sexual cancers, rests her reproductive system and the contents of the milk only CONCENTRATE as a child ages, no decrease in superiority. Please, please do research on kellymom.com and get up to date on this. The absolute focus should be nourishing a mother and not making her feel insufficient. Even her worst breast milk is irreplaceable.”
I totally agree with this comment especially. I don’t know why we have to take this angle. Why is this even a worthy topic to discuss. For one thing, we are using ONE baby as all the evidence, not that the one baby was not a tragedy (it was!) but unfortunately I know of a baby who died in this area because of raw milk. I drink raw milk, I am all for choices, but I’m not for propaganda and oversimplification. OF COURSE it makes a difference what the mother is eating, lets focus on that. Or what about adding some of the NT supplements to human milk? This whole post is really disappointing and an echo of the greater anti-breastfeeding sentiment of the US.
I am a mom of twins and I am using donated unpasteurized milk from 3 moms. I do not fully know their diets but I feel as if their milk is better than the alternative. We live in Hawaii were it is impossible to get raw milk. I have gone as far as trying to by a goat but I have been unsuccessful at this point. Farm owners are very scared to even talk about raw milk. So the homemade formula is hard to make. We are unfortunately having to give pasteurized goats milk to extend the supply of donated milk. I have to work out of the home and I have very low milk supply only able to pump about 15oz per day while they drink at least 40 oz per day while I’m gone. I realize this is not the best for my babies but what’s a mom supposed to do in this situation. My own nutrition is not always the best as well. Before pregnancy I ate Fast food daily, it was very difficult getting pregnant, that is when I went on the search for a healthier lifestyle. I have read and learned a lot about nutrition but knowing and doing are sometimes not always as easy to follow. I gave up coffee during my pregnancy but now I get up 6 times per night to nurse that I can’t seem to make it through out the day unless I drink coffee. Do you have any suggestions on how to feel better without. I do juice every morning but that does not give me the energy that coffee does. It’s a double edge sword. When I drink coffee I feel as I’m a better mom during the day, able to talk and play. Without the coffee I feel like a zombie mom…please advise!
Sarah, I have a question. My third daughter is going to turn 1 tomorrow, and she is so happy and smart. She has always been so skinny. She is long for her age, but so small she’s hardly on the charts. After reading how babies should be sturdy, I worry she is not as healthy as she seems since she is so skinny. I’ve thought about giving her formula along with breastfeeding her to she if that helps, but she really doesn’t like to eat that much. She has lost her desire to nurse except in the morning and night. My first daught was like this and she has some major allergies, but my second was sooo chunky and the perfect picture of health. Is it all just genentics or is there more going on?
Slim is fine and a genetic tendency – skinny is not ok and not healthy. At 1, babies don’t need the homemade formula anymore so you can transition to fresh grassfed dairy. Get one with as much fat as you can. Kids are very very tall today (even with much shorter parents) due to high protein, lowfat diets which from what I’ve read, elongate the bones but the bones are very thin and brittle. Try to focus on the nutrient dense traditional fats for her as much as possible. Sneak butter into everything, add cream to homemade soups, eat fatty grassfed meats etc.
What about the opposite? My 3 year old son has always been tall and thin until we started GAPS. Now he is very chunky with a belly. Is this normal? What should a healthy child look like? I worry that he will become overweight soon because he is always hungry, but I don’t want to deprive him of good foods. We’ve been through intro and we are on full GAPS now.
A robust child is neither skinny nor overweight. Sturdy and “just right” in the weight department .. but may be either slim or stocky depending on genetic heritage.
My daughter had this same problem – she was so skinny and her older sister was a chunk. After much trial and error, I discovered she had major candida from antibiotics.With the help of my naturopath, we killed the candida and her stomach is healing. She has gained weight and looks great. I am so happy.
I know that isn’t it because she was born at home and I never take anything. Unless she has some sort of gut thing anyway??
My baby was born at a birthing center – I gave her antibiotics for an ear infection. I discovered that we have gut dysbiosis in our family after reading Gut and Psychology Syndrome. I honestly think 90% of mothers have some kind of bacteria imbalance in their intestines – food allergies, eczema, seasonal allergies, heartburn, vaginal yeast, athlete’s foot, severe sugar cravings – these are only a few signs of a gut imbalance.
You are so right about major candida. I had it so bad it was actually coming out of my sinuses. My hands constantly looked like I had athletes feet. It can totally take over your system and cause numerous health problems. I just happen to find a Doctor who knew how to treat it and it cleared up . Glad you found the cause.
Firstly, I think people need to wake up and question why so many women have the real or perceived need (or even the desire) for substitute mother’s milk. According to the laws of mammalian biology less than .1% can not provide breast milk for their young. I believe we need to look at identifying the issues set us apart from our mammalian counterparts as well as place the same effort we do in looking for human milk substitutes into finding solutions to our individually human problems. I mean, if your family pet was pregnant you wouldn’t prepare to induce lactation in the anticipation that she would have problems feeding her nurslings or even “suffering a low milk supply”!
As we live in a society that has created a non biological/physiological “low milk supply” phenomena and has a long standing belief that other mammal spies milk are comparable to our own, many mothers have larger obstacles to conquer before they can tackle the issue of breast milk quality. But I completely agree with you that breast milk quality is so incredibly important and (shockingly) something that is very rarely recognised or mentioned by either midwives or lactation consultants to pregnant and new mothers.
To answer your question, in the incredibly rare event that I was unable to naturally lactate (or rarer still if I was unable to induce lactation/re-lactate) I’d accept a medically screened, unpasteurised, non homogenous, conventional eating mother’s milk over a raw pasture fed goat or cow etc. I guess I place a greater importance on the inherent genetic composition of the milk’s producer over the source that created it. Yes, in an ideal world, I’d only except a donor who was a friend prior to donation; was my neighbour; had a baby within days older or younger than mine; ate to the WAP traditions; was unvaccinated or had not been since childhood, owned a high quality refrigerator/freezer; stored the milk in glass bottles; would only freeze the milk necessary… Etcetera etcetera but if I was desperate I’d be grateful for the fact that the milk was human.
Sorry for the essay 🙁 This was a very thought provoking post 🙂
P.s Having read the comments I’d also like to add that I’d even preference the possibilities of the biological father lactating; a female relative wet nurse or a close friend wet nurse over using the expressed and stored of my “dream” donor described in my first comment. Formula whether of the highest quality homemade or the artificial industrially processed variety would, like the W.H.O guidelines, be my absolute last resort.
Hi Sarah,
I was so thrilled to read that you will be at the WAPF conference in Dallas. I am in the Texas Hill Country (west o Austin), so maybe I will be able attend!
At your other post about the vegan mother, I left a detailed post about my breastfeeding experience, so I won’t repeat it here. But regarding a milk bank…no I would not use one.
Most American women today eat a terrible diet and I’m sure their milk is void of nutrients. Also, this may sound immature, but for me their is an ick factor of feeding my son a stranger’s milk. On the other hand if one of my Nourishing Traditions friends had extra breast milk, I would take that. Otherwise, I would go with the homemade formula, which is what I did when I was uable to make enough milk due to a later diagnosed blood disease.
Thanks for all you do!
Love,
Mary
If I had a baby now and couldn’t breastfeed for whatever reason, I’d do the cow milk formula if breastmilk from a trusted donor wasn’t available. That said, I’m in Canada, raw milk is illegal everywhere and we have only been able to obtain it for 1 1/2 years now. So, for my 4 children, I would have been very much out of luck if I had needed an alternative for them. I am very happy and satisfied with my choice to breastfeed them all, even though my diet was not great (low in sugar, but not traditional, except for eggs and butter, things like that). It wasn’t up until I was pregnant with our 4th that we had started eating traditionally, like with stocks, lacto-fermenting etc. Still had no raw milk though at that point.
It really depends on your locale as well. Raw milk isn’t available everywhere, so making this choice might not even be possible for many, many women, unfortunately, regardless of how much they might want to. Plus, donated breastmilk is very, very expensive as well which is a huge factor for many people (and since it’s pasteurized, paying inflated prices is definitely not worth it).
It’s a complicated issue – I agree with everything you said, but it’s not that simple for a lot of women. We don’t all live somewhere that raw milk is available. It took my family almost 2 years to find a source for raw milk, for example. My youngest was 7 months old when we found our first raw milk source, so raw milk cow formula wouldn’t have been an option anyways. It’s very difficult when you want something so badly for your family’s future health but it’s just not available and out of your control. I live in a town too, so having my own cow wasn’t an option either. Thank goodness I was able to breastfeed with ease 🙂 I definitely feel very badly for women who are unable to and want to do a raw milk formula but it’s illegal for them to do so. That’s just wrong.