Althouse: "Who would want to feed a baby a 'formula'?"

May 13, 2009

"Who would want to feed a baby a 'formula'?"

(a+b)² = a² + 2ab + b². Here. Suck on that.

45 comments:

David said...: Nah, just mix a bunch of stuff together and give it to the kid. Wing it. The kid will be ok.

Where do they find these people?; 5/13/09, 4:04 PM
Trooper York said...: AAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!; 5/13/09, 4:22 PM
rhhardin said...: Add breast feeding anxiety to the list of parenting anxieties (toy, spanking, lessons, college) featured by the modern media.; 5/13/09, 4:30 PM
Eli Blake said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 5/13/09, 4:31 PM
MadisonMan said...: I refuse to listen to a blogginghead commenter who doesn't have a headset.; 5/13/09, 4:40 PM
Bissage said...: Calling it "Science Milk" doesn't help any.; 5/13/09, 5:04 PM
KCFleming said...: I was breast-fed on falsies.

I like Non-Dairy Creamer in my coffee.

Coincidence?; 5/13/09, 5:16 PM
Jeremy said...: Would it include Ambien?; 5/13/09, 5:17 PM
traditionalguy said...: These two dilatants are going to set themselves up as the judge of infant feeding methods of real women in their 20's who have managed to avoid the pressures to kill their baby, and go self actualize, also coming at them from advisors such as these? Where is Sarah Palin when the world needs her?; 5/13/09, 5:19 PM
Eli Blake said...: My wife was working in a battery factory when she had her first child. So she had to use formula because her breast milk would have contained dangerous levels of heavy metals including mercury and lead.

After she married me she quit that job and breast fed when she had the twins.

However there are sometimes some damn good reasons for using formula.; 5/13/09, 5:23 PM
traditionalguy said...: Formula at the Compounding Pharmacy is a life and death issue, as a teams polo ponies discovered last week. The formula for Coca Cola came from such a Pharmacy. Of all the snob sneers seen this year, these two ladies wondering what "formula" could mean, applied to their own drugged up lives, takes the cake.; 5/13/09, 5:28 PM
Ken Pidcock said...: You have to listen to the diavlog to the end, where Lawrence gets bored and decides to deploy her personal experience in order to shut off all discussion.; 5/13/09, 5:37 PM
Maxine Weiss said...: http://twitter.com/susanorlean; 5/13/09, 5:40 PM
Laura(southernxyl) said...: "Who would want to feed a baby a 'formula'?"

Maybe people who wouldn't want the baby to "starve" because the mother couldn't "nurse" it.; 5/13/09, 5:44 PM
Maxine Weiss said...: Ok, what this is, is some guy got fired from the New Yorker after dissing his boss, and the institution on Twitter.

http://twitter.com/danielsbaum

....however it's awkward trying to follow the whole thing, backwards and in such small bits.

Compelling, but awkward nonetheless.; 5/13/09, 5:45 PM
TMink said...: "Who would want to feed a baby formula?"

The mother of triplets?

Any father who wants to give his wife a break?

Anyone with more sense than dogma?

Trey; 5/13/09, 5:49 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Hanna Rosin looks like shes never seen a hair comb ;); 5/13/09, 5:51 PM
David said...: kynefski said...
"You have to listen to the diavlog to the end,"

Oh no I don't.

By the way, Rosin has written against the must breast feed storm troops in an article in the Atlantic. But she is so much smarter than the rest of us that she can't resist ridiculing a word, "formula," that has been used and easily understood for six or more decades.

The other lady is a breast feeding guru from way back.

Basically two dames who make a living by grabbing on to an issue and milking it for all it's worth.; 5/13/09, 5:52 PM
kalmia said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 5/13/09, 5:53 PM
Eli Blake said...: Overall, I think that breast milk is better in that it passes on antigens and other substances that formula milk doesn't have,

but it is still up to each individual mother. I believe this should come under the heading of 'pro-choice.'; 5/13/09, 5:57 PM
Palladian said...: "but it is still up to each individual mother. I believe this should come under the heading of 'pro-choice."

If you haven't chosen to kill your baby, feed it whatever you want!; 5/13/09, 6:00 PM
Synova said...: If the point is about the word "formula" sounding cold and scientific, then it's probably because this was considered a *good* thing when "formula" replaced powdered cow milk or goat milk.

We didn't always have this aversion toward science and reason.; 5/13/09, 6:01 PM
Big Mike said...: @Laura(southernxyl), you are so on the mark. When we had our first child the La Leche league told us that if he continued to refuse to suckle, just let him go hungry.

How do you do this to a newborn?

@David, I hope you are udderly ashamed.; 5/13/09, 6:28 PM
ricpic said...: Are we allowed to say we'd like to kill someone, the Rosin broad for example, just because?
Or is that a no no?
Who cares.
I say kill her -- for the greater good.; 5/13/09, 6:31 PM
Jeremy said...: I think the WHO stance is reasonable: formula is a safe and suitable substitute, but nevertheless recommends breastmilk when possible.

I believe this should come under the heading of 'pro-choice.'

Wouldn't your opponents be called "pro-breast"? I don't think the linguistics are helping you there.

We didn't always have this aversion toward science and reason.

Maybe not, but food science is hit or miss at best. It's brought us pasteurized milk on one hand but Twinkies and Kraft Singles on the other.

-The Other Jeremy; 5/13/09, 6:35 PM
David said...: Big Mike: I am unmooovved by your comment. You don't cow me.; 5/13/09, 6:36 PM
Methadras said...: "Lem said...

Hanna Rosin looks like shes never seen a hair comb ;)"

Or a penis.; 5/13/09, 6:40 PM
Albatross said...: My wife could not produce enough nutrients for my newborn son, even though she breastfed him every two hours or so, including through the night. He wasn't gaining weight, and my wife was getting delirious with lack of sleep. Our pediatrician then convinced us to switch to formula. The baby grew nicely, and my wife was able to get well-rested, partly because I could feed the baby as well.

Thank God for formula.

Suck on it, La Leche!; 5/13/09, 6:45 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: Je ne comprends pas le sens de la présente.

If I watch the video will being told to suck on a mathematic formula that is wrong make sense?

Did I tell you one time I assigned arbitrary contrived heiroglyphs to numbers and mathematic symbols then solved a page of algebra homework in heiroglyphs sticking with the symbols throughout just for fun and when the answers were translated back to Arabic numbers and regular symbols they were all correct? A simple insight, I know, but at the time it was an astounding ephiphany.

Sorry, but I had no opinion to contribute on breastfeeding.; 5/13/09, 7:11 PM
Jason (the commenter) said...: If the point is about the word "formula" sounding cold and scientific, then it's probably because this was considered a *good* thing when "formula" replaced powdered cow milk or goat milk.

I remember reading that they used to feed babies "pap", flour mixed with water. Compared to that "formula" sounds wonderful!; 5/13/09, 7:22 PM
ricpic said...: Mathematic formulae are blue.
Milk formula is white.
Being fed by Ms. Rosin would give a kid such a fright
That his space time continuum perception would be stunted, too.; 5/13/09, 7:24 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: But the formula given is wrong. Which suggests to me a baby formula is also wrong, but I'm sensing by "suck on this" wrongness is not what was intended, which leaves me confused. Please explain. Must I watch the video provided? I don't want to.; 5/13/09, 7:25 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: A case study in business school had to do with baby formula by an American company marketed in India. Mothers too poor to add milk to the formula added water instead, banking on the trust they had in all things American. Their babies suffered and died of malnutrition in large numbers. The problem was, what responsibility did the American company have.; 5/13/09, 7:31 PM
ricpic said...: Whatsamatta, the Injun mudders couldn't read the instructions, or understand when told to add milk, not water? American company totally guiltless. Case closed.; 5/13/09, 7:51 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: You're heartless and have no sympathy for poor and illiterate people who misplace their trust.

I think the company adjusted their formula to include powdered milk or something. The company wasn't at fault but cared for its good name.; 5/13/09, 8:16 PM
Joe said...: I don't believe your India anecdote, Chip. Regular milk is not a super nutritious liquid. I suspect the vast majority of deaths would have been due to using unclean water and/or diluting the formula (a problem to this day.); 5/13/09, 8:53 PM
Henry said...: Back in the Victorian days modern mothers used to give babies watered down cows milk. When the babies had colic, they gave them watered down gin.

Who would want to feed a baby 'a formula'? I dunno. Who would want to burb a baby's vomit onto one's shoulder? Who wants a baby to pee in your eye? What with the babies, there are fluids and secretions everytime you turn around.; 5/13/09, 9:03 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: Believe or disbelive whatever you wish, I don't care. But milk might not be super nutritious but it was still essential to the success of the formula so the formula wasn't being used as proscribed. However the infants suffered, they did suffer malnutrition and many died. Over time it was realized a good many mothers were misapplyig the formula so the formula was adjusted to account for that in order to protect the company's name in India and to continue doing business.; 5/13/09, 9:04 PM
Henry said...: Right now my seven-year-old survives -- thrives, even -- on breakfast cereal, processed cheese, and hotdogs. If I could feed him a formula I would. Algorithms are even more nutritious.; 5/13/09, 9:07 PM
Jennifer said...: She's commenting on the word, not the choice.

And, "formula" is a strange word for food. Nothing against science and reason, but generally speaking, it's nice when food sounds appetizing. Or at least a bit more organic than chemical.; 5/13/09, 10:06 PM
Anonymous said...: This is from australia, but i know it to be true of America as i was one of those late 50s babies. My mom told me they had a ratio of canned milk to water and some other additive so the recipe was like a formula in ratio format. my mom was good at math. she had no trouble with the formula.

anyway here is a snippet from australia:

www.historycooperative.org/journals/hah/5.1/thorley.pdf

Commercial Interests and Advice
on Infant Feeding: Marketing to
Mothers in Postwar Queensland

So, essentially, in Queensland in the 1940s and early 1950s, the choice of food for artificial feeding, at least as related by mothers to the baby clinic nurses, was fresh or powdered cow’s milk and Lactogen.16 It was only at the of the 1950s that competing brands came onto the Queensland
market. Later these factory-modified milks came to be referred to as

‘formula’, but in the early postwar years they were generally called by product name rather than by a generic term. The term ‘artificial
baby milk’, or ABM, will be used here to avoid confusion with the terms ‘recipe’ or ‘formula’, which were applied by some authorities
for the directions they gave for home-modifying fresh, dried or evaporated cow’s milk from the dairy company or grocery store.; 5/14/09, 8:11 AM
Anonymous said...: here is the US formula handed down from the turn of the before last century found at www.lactationconsultant.info

Early human milk substitutes lacked a great deal nutritionally. Dry nursing included the milk of other animals, broth, and Pabulum (a bread like substance). Recipes were handed down from mother to daughter in much the same way breastfeeding information once was. The addition of such oddities as cod liver oil and the introduction of solids at two weeks of age were required to provide essential nutrients. Otherwise, the baby would not grow and develop normally. Human milk naturally contains all the necessary nutrients.
A home formula recipe from 1908 contained instructions to obtain the milk both morning and evening and then let it stand for several hours to obtain the top cream (Rossiter 90). This recipe included freshly scalded cream, cows' milk, lime water, brown sugar, and boiled water. The use of unpasteurized cows' milk spawned epidemics of diarrheal disease, tuberculosis and malnutrition in the artificially fed infants. Infant mortality rates rose. With the arrival of evaporated canned milk the need for fresh milk diminished. Artificial feeding recipes based on canned milk contained light corn syrup and lime water besides the condensed milk. There were strict instructions for sterilization. Everything that touched the formula, from mixing cups to bottles, needed to undergo a lengthy sterilization process (Ingalls and Salerno 209- 216). By the 1950's nearly 85% of all infants were artificially fed.

a recipe is just a list of ingredients and instructions. a formula wwould be more like percentages and ratios. understand? bakers math. I told you about it before, ann. percentages not necessarily algebraic equations.; 5/14/09, 8:23 AM
Anonymous said...: here, ann.

The housewife will review for the professor from the artisan's website:

One way for all of us to strive to be better bakers is to understand how to apply "tools of the trade." One of these tools is Baker's Percentage. Professional bakers do not use "recipes". They use "formulas". Formulas show basic proportions of ingredients, calculated and expressed as percentages. Formulas also contain instructions.

In summary, Baker's Percentage is a useful and effective tool that enhances the skill and creativity of the baker.

It is how I make a variety of Christmas cookies. I call it the 3-2-1 method of cookie mürbeteig.

Wow, I need to make an phone app for this for people having a bit more trouble with the math like my acquired trouble with typing and spelling and grammar.; 5/14/09, 8:42 AM
TMink said...: commenter wrote: "understand? bakers math. I told you about it before, ann. percentages not necessarily algebraic equations."

Ahhhh, you are obviously Althouse's mother. Althouse is all growed up now mammy, you should not talk down to her dearie.

Trey; 5/14/09, 1:59 PM
Anonymous said...: is Ann's comment in the original post:

(a+b)2 = a2 + 2ab + b2. Here. Suck on that.

talking up or down? i get confused on the tone that was set from the onset to follow along.; 5/14/09, 2:56 PM