Category: Infant Health

  • Friends of the WHO Code?

    I sometimes wonder why good sense is called common sense, when it seems to be relatively rare in some places.  Take for example some of that minority who insist that no one should, for example,   read literature created or published by commercial interests (other than their own, or their friends); attend or speak at conferences…

  • Allergy Inquiry Submission November 2019

    HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Standing Committee on Health Aged Care and Sport : Inquiry into Allergies and Anaphylaxis submission by Maureen Minchin, Milk Matters Pty Ltd Summary Since 1976 I have lived and worked with allergy, published about it since 1980, and taught health professionals and others about it. I have worked with international bodies such…

  • Human or microbial? deception in marketing

    Over the years, many sad stories, but were there happy endings? I often wonder about outcomes long term. One in particular.  Were you the midwife who attended both my infant feeding and allergy and IBLCE exam prep workshops with your newborn baby more than 20 years ago? Workshops were held in Armadale around three weeks…

  • The visual Milk Hypothesis

    ‘what we feed them now matters forever’…… www.infantfeedingmatters.com

  • Infant Feeding History revised

    Chapter 14 of Breastfeeding and Breast Milk: from Biochemistry to Impact. What follows is the Content (but not the lovely formatting) of the entire chapter and references, pp. 219-239, as from my galley proofs of the above-titled book, published by Georg Thieme Verlag, Stuttgart in September 2018. Reproduced here with the consent of the publisher,…

  • IBFAN Asia Presentations Reading List

    Basic resource: Milk Matters: infant feeding and immune disorder, is also available as two inexpensive e-books, Infant formula and Modern Epidemics (the science and reality of artificial feeding) and Crying Babies and Food in the Early Years.No other book contains what this does. You need access to this. My Milk Hypothesis is available online in shorter…

  • Just how much does milk matter? A Medela interview

    This 4 minute interview came after doing a talk at a Medela conference.  I asked to speak at the conference, and the speaker fee was donated to charity, as Medela makes infant-feeding related goods, and is a commercial entity. However, the talk enabled me to reach a wider audience than those who usually come for…

  • Tuteur-Minchin Debate Outline

    WHY A TIMELINE? In my opinion, in an era of fake news and online hatred, Amy Tuteur (AT), the so-called Skeptical Obstetrician, and author of Push Back: Guilt in the Age of Natural Parenting, is undermining public health efforts, and I suspect, profiting from doing so. Personally, as a result of her behaviour, I consider…

  • Tuteur Push Back: Minchin Review

    Push Back. Guilt in the Age of Natural Parenting by Amy Tuteur. (HarperCollins NY 2016) INTRODUCTION I find it extraordinary for any medical doctor to have written a book containing such sweeping generalisations, allegations of vile motives by other health professionals, and minimally researched, provably untrue, and defamatory, assertions. Sadly, it is no longer rare…

  • About altered fats in some formulas

    I wrote to an author of a couple of articles on this topic. My email: Your 2014 Am J Clin Nutr and 2015 JPGN articles are being used to promote infant formulas in Asia and Australia. The marketing message is that your results show that the formulas are now closer than ever to breastmilk, as…

  • Evidence streams in infant feeding: ex-debate

    Breastfeeding has become the centrepiece of public health programmes, endorsed by the health industry and the infant formula industry and philanthropic groups and national governments alike. How did the world arrive at that global consensus about the importance of breastfeeding? It developed from three related, but independent, streams of evidence. 1. The first stream flows…

  • Tuteur debate: Minchin 3

    TUTEUR MINCHIN DEBATE  MINCHIN 3: A REPLY TO TUTEUR 2  Thanks to an onlooker, I received a copy of Amy Tuteur MD’s latest reply, which I discovered online at 12.30pm today June 21. It is not a reply addressed to me, but to her supporters. It is they who matter.    And to them I say that…

  • Tuteur debate: Minchin 2

    Tuteur debate: Minchin 2  is a two part reply for the historical record. It is in two parts. The first annotates what  Amy Tuteur posted online on her Facebook page.  The second part is a  critique of her reply (Tuteur 1)  to Minchin 1.   Get a cuppa or a glass of wine and read…

  • Tuteur debate: Minchin 1

    PREAMBLE FOR ANY SPECTATORS It is because infant feeding is such a powerful issue, and so important to global health, that I agreed to spend the time on this question set by Amy Tuteur, and to create a time-stamped secure permanent record on a dedicated website for future reference by historians of the “the Mommy…

  • Why am I (still) debating Amy Tuteur?

    As you wait for my reply to her question, to be posted tonight at midnight, here’s an answer to a question I am being asked. Why would anyone persist through so many unilateral changes ot procedure and topic as Amy has tried to create, though so much rudeness and scorn from her? Well may you…

  • Tuteur/Minchin debate procedure

    Debate procedure Maureen Minchin will follow This process has been independently designed after consulting tech experts to maximise accountability, minimise pointless emotive conflict, clearly delineate what is included and what is not, and create an independent record of all contributions. I am satisfied that the time spent on specialist consultation should achieve the end result of a…

  • Tuteur Debate Update: Progress?

    An Update: The Skeptical Obstetrician, and her challenge to ‘debate’. What has happened so far. March 3,  2019.  Dr Amy Tuteur intruded rudely on my Facebook page to challenge me to a debate – as she has challenged other breastfeeding advocates, individuals and groups. (Who sensibly refuse to engage with her.)  I agreed to consider…

  • Agreed Rules and Common Ground for Tuteur debate

    PROCEDURAL MATTERS FOR THE DEBATE Can you agree to these Rules for the debate, Amy Tuteur? Unless you do, I will not go ahead over the three days. As repeatedly stated from March onwards, I am not willing to have the debate hosted on Facebook, your page or mine, or any page you set up…

  • The Bottle, the Breast and the State: Oakley review

     The Bottle the Breast and the State. The politics of infant feeding in the United States.  By Maureen Rand Oakley. (Lexington Books 2015) I like this book, which should be  read by those in mother support, breastfeeding advocacy and feminist academia with the time to do so. I  support Oakley’s approach, as I welcome any book…

  • MILK: THE BIOLOGY OF LACTATION

    MILK: THE BIOLOGY OF LACTATION by Michael L Power and Jay Schulkin (Johns Hopkins Press, 2016) This relatively small book aims to inform, stimulate and even challenge thought about milk and lactation, its evolution, and its importance to modern life. It achieves those aims. The structure is clear, the authors adhere to it, and summarise…

  • What 3-4 months means…

    There should be no recommendation for change to the age of introduction of other foods to breastfed infants. For formula fed infants, there may be a case for widening the diet from 3-4 months onwards, as total dependence on a single dehydrated industrial powder is inherently risky; moderation and variety are the keys to dietary…

  • Why are we getting so fat? a letter to Prof Giles Yeo

    Dear Prof Yeo, I enjoyed the SBS-screened documentary, Why are we getting so fat? It was great to see an academic getting out to where people are, and listening. I would really like to make a time to chat by skype or meet when in the UK on a lecture tour. You just might listen…

  • ELF Feeds: a fairy story analysed: part 1

    EARLY LIMITED FORMULA FEEDS: A FAIRY STORY ANALYSED (from Milk Matters, p.113-6) [Another post will comment on this group’s newest published research asap.]  … a tiny study of just forty mothers336 may have persuaded some (who didn’t read it carefully) that infant formula is harmless, even beneficial, because it supports maternal breastfeeding…. The study authors’…

  • Milk Fats and Fantasies: MFGMs

    In some ways formula has come full circle. The 1980s banishing of “animal fats” is now seen by some scientists as a mistake. Companies are likely to reintroduce processed milk fat in formulas where it presently does not exist.  Of course bovine and human milk fats are not identical[ii], as calves have different needs from…

  • Formula Perfection and Additives: Forever Imperfect

    Formula Perfection and Additives: Forever Imperfect

    Milk Fats and Fictions  Forever Imperfect Formula  Protected by the ignorance or silence of health professionals, gullible and trusting parents have always believed infant formula to be perfect, a totally safe replacement for women’s milk. Why? Because infant formula has always been marketed as perfect. One company still claims to have “the perfect mix of…

  • UNDOING THE MYTH THAT SUSTAINS FORMULA FEEDING

    Food in general has never been more extensively and intensively investigated, and recently three books have added to my knowledge of the reality of food processing. I commend them to anyone interested in the politics and science of food. And I hope the authors of all three books will in future address the topic of…

  • THE MYTH THAT SUSTAINS ARTIFICIAL FEEDING

      “I don’t see the difference really between breast-feeding and bottle-feeding. If bottle-feeding wasn’t good for a baby,  no-one would have ever invented this formula we are feeding our children”. Quote from a thesis which grossly misrepresents my writing as condemning women who formula feed.  What creates such naïve unwillingness to believe that modern infant…

  • Intolerant Bodies: a history of immune research

    Intolerant bodies: a history of auto immunity. Anderson W, Mackay IR. (Johns Hopkins Press 2014) A focussed partial review and commentary.. This readable and illuminating text by an historian and an immunologist outlines the historical process of uncovering the workings of the immune system. Finding this book was for me finding a missing piece of…

  • Formulas for obesity and altered development: an excerpt about cows and soy formulas

    An excerpt about formulas and obesity, from pages 37-49 of Milk Matters: infant feeding and immune disorder. Also e-book Infant formula and modern epidemics: the Milk Hypothesis Author note: The previous section of this first part of the 800+ page book discussed the ways that breastmilk directs and supports normal infant development. The subsequent pages…

  • Fever is a Friend

    Paying attention to the baby requires constant (though not uninterrrupted) adult presence. Two really important signals all caregivers need to notice in all children, especially young ones, are pain and fever. Both are indiscriminate responses to a wide range of problems that activate the immune system, among them allergy. And let it be said upfront,…

  • Research shows what parents have known for decades

    OK, here’s what’s been in the news. https://stm.sciencemag.org/content/8/321/321ra8 “Now, Zhang et al. report that infants who later developed food allergy had altered immunity at birth. Cord blood from these infants had more monocytes compared with CD4+ T cells and decreased numbers of regulatory T cells. Moreover, the monocytes from food-allergic infants secreted more inflammatory cytokines than…

  • I’m going nuts about peanuts: or are other people?

    The LEAP trial looking at prevention pf peanut allergy in Jewish children in the UK and Israel is interesting, but is being widely misquoted in the media and by health professionals as justification for 4 rather than 6 months for the introduction of solid food. Why is this inappropriate? Where to start… Inclusion criteria were…

  • FOUR MONTHS OR SIX OR NEITHER? when to widen the milk diet.

    What follows is an excerpt from my latest book, Milk matters: infant feeding and immune disorder. It is much easier to read in the book itself, which also deals with practical matters related to this issue. Copying the text from an In Design file to this version has been a time-wasting nightmare, and there will be…