{"id":17169,"date":"2021-04-01T10:00:20","date_gmt":"2021-04-01T14:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/?p=17169"},"modified":"2021-03-19T10:04:48","modified_gmt":"2021-03-19T14:04:48","slug":"homemade-baby-formula-is-not-recommended","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/2021\/04\/01\/homemade-baby-formula-is-not-recommended\/","title":{"rendered":"Homemade Baby Formula is Not Recommended"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/adorable-baby-drinking-milk-from-bottle-from-bottle_74333-667-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-17170\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/adorable-baby-drinking-milk-from-bottle-from-bottle_74333-667-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/adorable-baby-drinking-milk-from-bottle-from-bottle_74333-667.jpg 626w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>By Reed Mangels, PhD, RD<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A recent update from the U.S. Food &amp; Drug Administration\n(FDA) provided information about infant formulas. Its title, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fda.gov\/food\/alerts-advisories-safety-information\/fda-advises-parents-and-caregivers-not-make-or-feed-homemade-infant-formula-infants?utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=govdelivery\">FDA\nAdvises Parents and Caregivers to Not Make or Feed Homemade Infant Formula to\nInfants<\/a>,\u201d reminds us that babies should not be given homemade\nformulas. Ideally, babies would be given only breast milk until they\u2019re 6\nmonths old, after which they would be started on solid food. If breast feeding,\nor exclusive breast feeding, isn\u2019t possible, commercial infant formula should\nbe used to replace or partially replace breast milk.&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The FDA update\ngoes on to explain that they strictly regulate what can and can\u2019t be in infant\nformula. It\u2019s very important that formula is nutritionally adequate because it\nis the only food young formula-fed infants are given. FDA regulations also set\nupper limits for nutrients so that the formula doesn\u2019t supply excessive amounts\nof nutrients which could also be harmful. The FDA does not evaluate homemade\ninfant formula recipes. These recipes could have inadequate or excessive\namounts of important nutrients. For example, the FDA has recently received\nreports of hospitalized infants suffering from hypocalcemia (low calcium) who\nhad been fed homemade infant formula.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Another potential\nproblem with homemade formulas is that they could be contaminated with bacteria\nthat could cause foodborne illnesses in young infants which could be\nlife-threatening. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>     We recommend that infants be exclusively breastfed for the first 6 months. If that isn\u2019t possible, infants should be given commercial infant formula or a combination of commercial infant formula and breast milk. Vegan families typically use commercial soy-based infant formulas if exclusive breast feeding isn\u2019t possible. Homemade formulas or plant milks are not nutritionally adequate for babies and should not be used. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>     For more information about feeding vegan babies see:  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/nutshell\/kids.php\">https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/nutshell\/kids.php<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Reed Mangels, PhD, RD A recent update from the U.S. Food &amp; Drug Administration (FDA) provided information about infant formulas. Its title, \u201cFDA Advises Parents and Caregivers to Not Make or Feed Homemade Infant Formula to Infants,\u201d reminds us that babies should not be given homemade formulas. Ideally, babies would be given only breast [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17169"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17171,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17169\/revisions\/17171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}