Shcherbakova Alla Anatolyevna, pediatrician-gastroenterologist, clinic "Mother and Child"
Mother's milk is the best food for a newborn baby. It is difficult to disagree with this common truth, because the composition of human milk really, ideally meets all the needs of the baby. It is an ideal source of not only nutrients, but also biologically active substances, antibodies necessary for the normal growth and development of the body of a newborn child.
However, it is far from always possible to establish full-fledged breastfeeding. Disease of the mother or baby, insufficient or no milk production, the need to take some drugs cause a complete or partial transition to feeding adapted milk mixture.
Goat or cow mix?
The vast majority of adapted nutritional formulas for feeding newborns in our country are made on the basis of cow's milk. It is cheap and practical - cow's milk is widely used in the nutrition of our people, it is healthy and nutritious. But in recent years, there has been an increasing use of goat milk formulas. They are more expensive than mixtures made from cow's milk, but they are gaining in popularity.
This circumstance is associated with a number of reasons:
- In terms of a number of indicators, goat milk is much closer to human milk than cow's milk. In particular, goat's milk, and, accordingly, adapted formulas based on it, contain the same taurine, as much as human, and this trace element is extremely important for the formation of the immune system baby.
- Goat's milk is extremely nutritious and the nutrients are more readily available than cow's milk. In particular, the droplets of fat in it are much finer and more evenly distributed, which contributes to its maximum absorption. When fed with a mixture based on goat's milk, it forms a curdled clot in the stomach of the crumbs, much more tender than that of a mixture made from cow's milk. It is easier to digest, does not irritate the walls of the baby's digestive tract, does not provoke regurgitation and colic.
- Goat milk - and, accordingly, mixtures from it, are rich in potassium, calcium, vitamins A, B6, folic acid. At the same time, calcium from goat milk is extremely bioavailable and is completely absorbed by the child's body, which serves as an excellent prevention of rickets.
- Goat milk contains a minimum of milk sugar - lactose.
- Goat milk mixtures contain no cow's milk proteins. Therefore, if you are allergic to specific proteins in cow's milk, goat milk formula may be an optimal substitute.
Who needs goat milk formulas?
First of all - for children prone to regurgitation, intestinal colic and other digestive disorders. The gastrointestinal tract of a child in the first months of life is functionally immature, and in some children supplementary feeding is adapted formula from cow's milk or the transition to artificial feeding with them causes serious problems with digestion. In this case, goat milk mixtures are the best choice.
A good result, as a rule, is given by feeding goat milk formulas to children with insufficient levels of lactase - an enzyme necessary for the digestion of milk sugar, which is contained in goat's milk few.
Goat milk formula is essential for children with allergies to cow's milk protein and soy formula. Due to its high digestibility and unique composition, the goat milk mixture is recommended for babies with a tendency to obesity.
Of course, a qualified pediatrician should select a mixture for feeding a baby, in accordance with the characteristics of the baby's body, its development and state of health. Among the mixtures based on goat milk, the assortment of which is constantly expanding, doctors often choose the mixture "MD Mil SP Kozochka" - this mixture is produced in Spain, as close as possible to the composition of human milk, enriched with alpha-linolenic acid and calcium, which is necessary for the development of the child and does not contain starch, which often additionally provokes colic in babies.
Supplementary feeding or artificial feeding of a baby with a high-quality milk mixture allows the baby to develop fully and prevent digestive problems.
