A new study could affect conventional thinking when it comes to newborn babies and formula. Many new mothers are instructed to stick to breast feeding and stay away from formula until their child is ready. However, the new study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, says formula might actually aid mothers when it comes to breast feeding, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Researchers believe the administration of formula to newborns can help the mother with early-stage breast feeding and sustain a longer breast feeding period in the baby’s life.
The study suggests that formula can help to keep mothers encouraged if their baby begins to lose weight while the body takes time to produce breast milk. Babies can also seem hungry and miserable during this time.
Dr. Valerie Flaherman, a pediatrician and researcher at the University of California, San Francisco—along with her colleagues—conducted the study with 40 infants. Each infant had lost 5 percent of the weight they had when they were born within 36 hours after leaving the womb.
The babies were divided into two groups. 20 babies received 10 milliliters of formula through injection following breast feeding from their mother. Once the mother’s milk came in, the formula injections ceased. The other 20 continued with natural breast feeding.
The researchers pointed out after a week that two of the first group were given formula within the previous day—out of the 19 control infants nine had been given formula.
At the age of three months 79 percent of the first group was feeding solely on breast milk compared to only 42 percent of the control group.
"By partially ameliorating weight loss and signs of fussiness and hunger, early limited feeding may provide mothers with a strategy to allay their milk supply concern and continue with their desire to breast-feed for a longer duration," the team wrote in the study.
Case Western Reserve pediatrician Dr. Lydia Furman, had commentary published in the same journal Monday and questioned the study. She thought the team’s methods to be questionable and saying one of the coauthors had “financial ties to the formula industry."
"There are critical limitations to study design that bring their conclusion into question and restrict the generalizability of their results," Furman said.
The group admitted the limitations of the study but they believe future studies will corroborate their results and lead to benefits for new mothers in the future.