How Feeding Babies Works: The Bottle

mean the entire Bay area of course. Yeah, so we will be there doing our thing for one time only show on Sunday, January at one pm. Yeah, it's the rare Sunday afternoon. We're like the NFL of podcasters. Yeah right, that's that's what I've always thought. So all you have to do is go to the SF Sketch Fest site, look at the old calendar, and there are tons of

great people performing. Oh yeah, So I suggest like just doubling down and getting tickets to all kinds of good shows for sure, And hurry up and get tickets to is because they've only been on sale for a week or so and they're already half sold out. That's right, So please hurry, San Francisco, please hurry. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and we have guest producer Noel with us.

And this is Stuff you Should Know, Part two. That's right. And actually things are gonna get weird because Noal is about to leave, I think, and then that means we're alone again. You never know what's gonna happen. The beating of our hearts is the only sound stuff you should know after dark. Let's got weird pretty quick. Uh. So this is part two of How Feeding Babies Works? Right, we're on the same page. Oh yeah, yeah, I hope so. Uh and part one I think went down pretty well.

It's uh, it was a little nerve racking being two dudes at the risk of doing it wrong or or like you said, man splaining, which I I even hate saying that term. But I think we did a pretty good job. Yeah, we didn't come across as we were hanging on by just our fingernails like I felt for most of the time. I think we did all right too. Yeah, and today we're gonna focus a lot more on formula feeding, which I feel much more comfortable because it's something I

know a lot about. Right, Yeah, I figured you could probably deal a lot of heavy lifting on this one. Well it's not that heavy, just five or six ounces at a time. Terrible we uh Yeah, this one is the first. One is called the breast. This one is called the bottle. And yeah, you know, the bottle is well usually filled with formula, but there's plenty of other stuff you could fill with it, specifically breast milk, UM. But a lot of women start using bottles fairly early on,

sometimes from the outset. And there's a lot of reasons why. There's a lot of reasons I guess, in other words, why UM women either choose not to or ultimately have chosen for them not to breastfeed UM. And one of the big ones that's actually pretty common is a condition called mass titis. And mess titis is basically an extremely extremely painful inflammation of the breast or breasts, I guess, in the worst case, which can be brought on by like sore cracked nipples, um or an infection in the

breast block milk ducks. There's a lot of stuff they can bring it on and as painful as breastfeeding can be, Apparently the recommended treatment, of course of treatment for massitis is to keep on breastfeeding. That clearly, like actually the flow of milk through the breast clears up the inflammation and even the infection in some cases. And I was trying to figure that out, like how would that work?

But then I remember breastmoke is so chuck full of anybodies that I guess it would deliver that antibodies to that site as well, right, wouldn't that That was the only thing I could come up with. Yeah, that makes sense, And you know, yes, or well actually did record We'll let the cat out of the bag. We're recording these on two super days even yeah, we usually do the sweets in one day. But uh yeah, we decided to sleep on it, right, And I think that's probably a

good move. But yesterday when I mentioned my mother did not breastfeed me and she had some problems with my brother, I think that was the deal. I think there was,

um it was pain and stuff like that. Yeah, And I mean, like from what I can gather, mastitis is not just pain, like you feel very ill and run down and apparently you're supposed to get lots of bedrest and and nutritious fluids and express your milk every two hours and apparently and express yourself for that matter, right, which is probably amounts to, um, I'm in hell right now.

Probably um. But the when you put all this stuff together on top of like all of the normal things that you have to do under the best of circumstances when caring for a newborn, this very frequently represents the last straw. For women who are like on the fence about breastfeeding. The mestiti is commonly leads them to say,

we're done with that. I'm done with breastfeeding. That's one another one I came across that, Um, I hadn't really thought about that kind of surprised me, was boom jobs, Yeah, I never considered this until you did the research and that thought. Oh you know what, I never even thought about that. That's so out of my uh sphere of consciousness. That pretty uh oh. I don't think I meant that to be a pun was it? No, it wasn't. It was.

It's a great T shirt, you know, like instead of talk to the hand, it's you are now out of my sphere of consciousness. Uh So if you do get breast implants, Um, it kind of depends on the reasons why, how it's done. Uh, where it's actually done obviously in the breast area, but they have we haven't done one of breast implants have, dude. One of our better episodes

is on breast implant Really. Yeah, I remember I said I wanted to see what a breast I plant looks like on a dog because apparently they practice on dogs early on. Yeah, that was a great episode from beginning to end. It was a long time ago though. Um So, getting back to it. The the incisions, it depends on where they're made. If they go across the nipples are arela, it's probably likely that your milk ducks in the nerves

were cut, which means you probably can't breastfeed exactly. But if you had a good doctor and they went like into your armpit underneath your breast, they probably also specifically chose to save those nerves and go around them. So if your incisions are under your breast, around your armpit, uh, you you probably are able to breastfeed. I imagine that's a part of the conversation when you go in there, don't you think probably, Bie, like, hey, do you want to have kids or do you have kids or do

you want a breastfeed? Yeah, like I would. I don't know, I've never I've never had a consultation. No, but yeah, I mean it does seem reasonable that that would be part of it, for sure, I would think so. Yeah. Uh. The other thing, if you still have feeling in your nipples, that's a good sign that the nerves are still intact. Uh.

And sometimes that takes a little while to come back though. Yeah, if you just had your your breast augmentation surgery and the feeling isn't back, that doesn't mean it's not going to come back. So that's not a sign. But if it's been years now and you have feeling back in your nipples, you probably can can breastfeed. Where you got your implants counts too. If it's in the actual memory tissue, UM, that's gonna be a problem. It's going to get in

the way of milk production. But if they put it under your chest muscles, which is more involved but um is basically out of the way of your your actual breasts, you can um probably breastfeed. I feel like I should be finishing each one of these with you're probably your redneck. You know, you probably can breastfeed if the implant is on the back of your neck. The good news is you can breastfeed, but you probably made a grave error in your choice of doctors. Then you might be a redneck. Uh,

you'd be a boob neck. Uh. And then the reason for having it is another UM factor. If you if you just got the breast implants because you wanted larger breast and it was purely cosmetic, then you probably are a better candidate for breastfeeding. Whereas if you got implants because the tissue was never developed, or there was maybe asymmetric problems, or if the breasts were far apart from one another, Like, these are reasons that you may not

be able to breastfeed. And again I imagine in the console this will all be coward Yeah, Like if you got breast augmentation because your memory tissue didn't develop properly or normally, then um, yeah, you might not be able to breastfeed. So those are a couple. There's plenty of other reasons why a woman would choose not to breastfeed. Um. In large part it's a matter of preference right. Some women just simply don't want a breastfeed. Some are afraid

it's gonna hurt, Some are embarrassed by the idea. UM. In some families, it's a family tradition that you're raised on formula um. There's basically as many reasons for a woman to choose not to breastfeed as as as there are reasons, probably even more to tell you the truth. So let's die back in history a bit. We sort of, uh, I guess we usually do history first, but this is sort of woven in sensibly. I think um back in the day it was. It's kind of interesting. I have

heard wet nurse my whole life. I've known that was a term, but I literally never knew what that was. Really. No, I don't know why. It's just maybe I'm a big dummy, but I had no idea that a wet nurse is a woman who breastfeeds someone else's child. It's funny, I did not know that, did you had? Did you think it was something else? So you just never stopped and thought about We never stopped and thought about it. I never needed one, so I was just like, yeah, and

you know, put a wet nurse on it. Sure that help, right, that'll clear that bum nye right up? Is better than a dry nurse, right, sure, drying nurse. They're chapped and cracked. So yeah, that's what what happens. Uh, And it was it's very common practice back in the day, especially before the feeding bottle was invented, and um, of course, as you would imagine, it was an alternative mainly for people of higher status. Yeah. Yeah, that's actually kind of fascinating.

Um in that for a very very long time, except for a period between about eighteen thirty or eighteen twenty and eighteen no I'm sorry, eighteen fifty and eighteen eighty, when breastfeeding was all the rage in America, very much

akin to the situation now. Breastfeeding was seen as what the um women of lower socioeconomic classes did, like, they can't afford a wet nurse, so they have to feed their baby exactly right, exactly or yeah, they like I would hire a woman of a lower socio economic class to feed my own baby, um, just because it just wasn't done this. Women didn't do that kind of thing

if you were well off or well to do. Yeah, which is is terrible, but you, Um, I never considered that a lot of mothers died during or not a lot, but plenty more mothers died during childbirth back then. And so that's a chance to save these babies, which is amazing. Sure truly, for sure, I mean like, and that's that's one way that wet nurses really did kind of keep

things going. But for for a large part for about two thousand years, UM, breastfeeding or the use of wet nurses was basically what you what women of a higher status did they hired breasts or wet nurses, which is

I had no idea. It's fascinating, it is, and even more to the point, uh, it kind of formed the basis of this idea that um, not breastfeeding was preferable to breastfeeding, that you were it was better to not breastfeed if you were able to write, it was the preference of the wealthier class, whereas the exact opposite is

is the position today. They've completely switched positions today. Yeah, and this this author Katherine Joyce uh in The New Republic, UM basically said, you know, it's been a constant throughout history that whether whichever is in fashion, they think they're right, right, Like one is viewed as better than the other depends on where you are in history as to which that was.

It's not equal, it's not different. One is clearly better, and in many cases, especially as the cases now concerning breastfeeding, is morally better in the view of the people who champion it, you know. Um, So for a very long time men have been extremely fascinated with breast milk or with feeding babies. Right, they've applied scientific inquiry to the whole thing, because I think that is part of it, you know. Um, well, yeah, but I mean we covered

that yesterday. We could try all we wanted to wouldn't work, So maybe that is part of the reason. I hadn't really considered that. But there has been a lot of scientific inquiry. Ironically, it hasn't really come up with any set stuff. But as far back as um, I think ninety the nineties, just the nineties, not even the nineteen nineties.

Years before the nineties, there is a guy named Serahnis of Theseus, and he was an early physician who basically wrote a twenty three chapter treatise on obstetrics and pediatrics and kind of gynecology, and one of the things he focused on was breast milk. Yeah, and his big contribution, well, one of the big contributions was a test for the consistency of breast milk that stood for about fifteen hundred years, which is pretty amazing. Well, because it's clearly infallible. Yeah.

So here's what you do, is you, uh, you take a fingernail and you drop a drop of breast milk on the fingernail and I guess the fingernails facing up and you're flat with the finger. Uh. When it's on the fingernail and you move the finger, the milk is not supposed to be so watered down that it runs all over the nail. And when you point your fingernail down, it's not so thick that it uh turns into a

transformer robot. Now, it's not so thick that it clings to the nail and that you're looking for somewhere in the middle. Is what he's says. And for years people said, yep, that's how you do it. Yeah. And so not only was that like, your breast milk is great, but also this wet nurse's breast milk is adequate for the contract you want to give her. Oh, sure, I never thought about that. Yeah, I probably had a lot to do with it, for sure. Um. And people also used animal

milk as well. Apparently for the last two thousand years, there's evidence of people using animal milk. Um. But for for the most part it was wet nurses and then formula, artificial formula, which came back late nineteenth century. Yeah. Um. In the nineteenth century there was a guy named Eustace fun lie Big and he set about trying to create a perfect infant food and artificial breast milk, right, and

in eighteen sixty five he kind of cracked it. He made a liquid form and then a powdered form, and it was made up of cow's milk, wheat and malt, flour and potassium by carbonate. And when he came up with this in the eighteen sixties, um, it was considered like the perfect infant food, basically better than breast milk. Yeah. And by this point, this was about uh fifteen is years after the first feeding bottles were introduced in France.

So people were ready like, we've got the bottle, we've we've worked out these very rudimentary cork nipples, and um, we need something to put in it besides breast milk and one of the other things that that UM came all. All this stuff kind of came together to form the

basis of a successful formula feeding formula, right, um. And one of those was things like sterilization, pasteurization, germ theory, because in the early nineteenth century they were trying out like bottles and stuff like that, but it was killing infants left and right because they didn't know about sterilization, they didn't know about UM germ theory at the time. They I think something like one third of non breastfed babies died from being fed UM artificial milk. That's staggering,

it is, that's a lot. So there was a huge breakthrough in the late nineteenth century when they came up with a decent formula that wasn't UM just animal milk, and that they could deliver it in some sort of feeding apparatus that wasn't gonna ultimately kill the baby, right, So that was a big deal. Yeah, And this is all, like I said, early eighteen fifties is when the bottle

comes UM. Eighteen sixty five is when von lee Big developed his UM, and sort of a little before and a little after you had people like Gail Borden if that name rings a bell, uh, Eagle brand boarding condensed milk. She came up with that um at a sugar. I'm pretty sure, Huh, it could be a boy. It sounds like it's just a man too, as a country western singer. No,

Gael totally can be a guy's name. I just defaulted to lady because I don't know, because it's about breastfeeding, I guess, so he I guess added sugar to evaporated milk candid and that was condensed milk. And then about thirty years later, I mean, it became popular as an infant food. Obviously. Have you ever had condensed milk in in things, not in things like cheesecakes and and like the sweetest dessert you can ever have. Yeah, they were feeding that that stuff straight up to infants as the

infant food. Yeah. Yeah. And about thirty years later, another one, John B. Marling, was that a man. It's possible. Uh. He developed an unsweetened condensed milk. UM called it evaporated milk, and this became a big thing to feed babies in the thirties and forties. All this stuff had a lot of fat Um, it would plump your baby up really well, but it was missing a lot of the things that babies need to thrive, like why does my baby have

claws instead of fingernails and like dark circles under his eyes. Oh, nutrients, that's right, we need vitamins in this stuff. Yeah, which, uh in the nineteen twenties or so is when scientists started developing these uh formulas that didn't even have cow's milk at all, right, right, for kids that had milk allergies.

They started using like soy flower. Yeah. And so when they figured out that, um, you could take this stuff and evaporate milk or evaporate soy protein and add this other stuff to it, like nutrients and vitamins, um, and balance it all out, formula really took off and it became a really almost a triumph of science in the popular culture. Right. So, starting in the thirties in America, if you wanted formula, you basically had to go to

your doctor for it. You didn't necessarily need a prescription from what I saw, but the the rule was that if you were a formula manufacturer, you could only advertise directly to doctors. So it gave formula this kind of air of medicine like it was. It was medical and nature.

It was like sterile and high quality, and that that had the stamp of science behind it, and it lionized the physicians who were now in between the mother and the baby's food, right, the doctor needed to recommend it, and so it was a It was a real way that UM science and medicine and parenting, especially early early childhood parenting came fused together. And so there was this idea that science had had conquered nature and created this

perfect infant food. So by the nineties and fifties, this is when formula had really taken root, uh in the United States, and I guess around the world, but definitely in the United States, and it definitely caused a decline

in breastfeeding for about thirty years. Yeah, I mean this is around the time the Late h A League started to organize in the fifties as a direct result of this decline in breastfeeding UM, and it continued on even into the seventies where the Our Bodies Ourselves people UM organized that second wave of lactivism, right, and formula is like flying high from the thirties the forties onto about the mid seventies, and you can actually point to one

specific scandal that that basically led to a massive erosion of trust in formula, not just in the United States but around the world that's still around today. Actually, Yeah, the Nesli Company in the mid nineteen seventies, they were sued because they were trying to really market formula to

developing countries very aggressively. Yeah, they wanted to sell more formula, so they would do things like sin uh, saleswomen over dressed up in nurses uniforms who were not nurses, giving obviously the indication like, hey, this this is a great thing. You should you should use it. And formula was a great thing that they developed it, for sure, But what they didn't say in Africa to these mothers is that, hey, you need really good clean water here for this to

be a viable source of nutrition for your kid. They didn't know that. Uh, they used at tainted water and infants started dying. Yeah, and it was laid squarely at the feet of nestly formula and ultimately formula in general. Um. And that was I think seventy four that that happened, and a few years later the World Health Ordization came up with these guidelines for for marketing formula around the world.

It was such a huge scandal, and the US said, oh, wait, you know what, we just realized there's nobody overseeing our formula market they we should put the FDA on that. So it wasn't until nineteen eighty that the United States task the f d A with overseeing the quality impurity of formula. For then it was apparently just totally unregulated. Yeah,

I can't believe nineteen eighty that's really really surprising. But the whole suspicion of formula and the whole idea that it's dangerous, sir, that it's problematic, it all stems from that event that um, that that scandal with Nessley in Africa. Yeah. So about eight years later, in the late eighties, the formula folks started, uh they could advertise directly to the

public for the first time. I got on TV, got in print ads and said, hey, used to use our formula's good stuff, and and um, apparently the American Academy of Pediatric so still didn't like this kind of advertising and said you should still go to your doctor and talk about all this stuff, right, which is a conundrum it's like, well, wait a minute, are you guys saying that the the formula industry is being greedy and and

reckless by going around you? Or are you just trying to preserve you know, your own bank accounts by reinsinuating yourselves into this this factor when you're not really necessary. It's like just one more thing you have to figure out when you're trying to raise a newborn infant. That just stinks, you know. All right, Well, speaking of stinks, I need to take a break and man, we'll come back in a minute and talk a little bit about

milk banks and other cool things. Alright, chuckers, we're back, right, We're at the milk bank. Yeah, milk bank is Uh, it's pretty neat. I hadn't heard of it before. Um, had you? Oh I'm sure you have. I actually hadn't heard of any of this stuff. Oh really, Okay, Well let's talk milk banks then baby. All right, So let's say, um, breastfeeding is not an option for any of the reasons

we've talked about. For mom um, you can go to a milk bank where milk has been donated breast milk obviously, uh from from women and uh you can pay a lot of money for banked milk that you know is very healthy, fully screened. Uh, just like going to a blood bank, basically, right, exactly. Um, you need a doctor's prescription. Uh. And it is expensive, like five bucks an ounce of money, it is, but it's good, high quality, disease free mother's milk. Right.

And so I've seen that some insurance companies, some insurance plans will either pay all or some of that cost, so it can drop dramatically. But because it's so expensive and because not all insurance covers it. Um other um peripheral milk exchanges have grown up, some alarming, some slightly less alarming. But like there's one called only the Breast, which is a lot looks a lot like Craigslist for milk. Okay, have you been on it? No, Actually didn't go to

the website. So every probably every third UM ad is like some sort of weird porno ad or something like that. But the other two are legitimate. You know, Like, I have milk, I'm healthy, and i just have too much, so I'm selling it for a dollar announce or something like that. UM, and I'm like I got the best stuff out there. Well, now I'm sure there are. I

didn't run across any of that. But there's also uh like something that that you can also click that says like men need not contact me because apparently there's like a whole thing of weirdos out there who are like, hey, sell me your extra breast milk. You know, I was gonna make a joke a minute ago about milk banks being for you know, mother suit can't or won't breastfeed, or creepy weird wealthy guys. They go to only the breast apparently, So is it a thing for men to

drink breast milk? I guess so, because you can go on only the breast, and most from what I saw,

most of the legitimate ads were like, no, don't. I don't want any men to contact me, but there are That means that there are some out there where if you are a man, you could buy breast milk, which I mean, I guess if you have that fetish and it's not hurting anybody then right, But still I guess so, so so you've got only the breast, the problem is this, right, And I don't mean to pick on only the breast.

There's other milk sharing sites like this. They definitely do serve a function where if you want to feed your baby mother's milk, um, and you just can't afford five dollars an ounce, but you can't afford one dollar announced and some some women on there have it for free. They're just donating it, they don't aren't charging anything for it. Um that's a viable place to go. The problem is this, the milk you're getting is not in any way screened.

You have no idea whether the person you're getting it from, despite how great they look and how healthy they look, whether they're actually disease free, and hence whether their milk is disease free, which is that's very alarming. It is.

There's also something called cross nursing, which seems like a reasonable alternative, and that's that's basically just when two women or four or five, just people who know each other like neighbors or good friends that are pregnant at the same time, uh, well, cross nurse and basically it's it's just milk sharing among a few people, straight from the tap, straight not straight from the tap. They'll they'll bottle it up and and go next door and say, you know,

I had this leftover milk. I see, it's just it's basically milk sharing, but but not through like some big website. It's just among friends. I got to just keep it between friends. There's there is a website called milk Share that is it's along the lines of only the breast, but it's much more um uh regimented. Yeah. Um, it's all donated, it's all free um or there's no charge and um there are there's like guidelines for storing and shipping and stuff like that that only the breast didn't have.

But again still, as far as I know, it's not screened for anything. Yeah, and we're not disparaging anyone who wants to use services like this at all. I just want to make that clear. It's just we want people to be as safe as possible. Yeah, I mean what's the alternative though? You know, like if you want to feed your child breast milk, you can't breastfeed and you just don't have the money, what do you do? You know,

that's a sticky situation. It is. It's very sad. Uh. We talked a little bit about the breast pump yesterday, but um, we'll we'll really get into it here. It was advented in the early nineteenth Uh. I don't know if it's early, but let's just say nineteenth century. It was about the time when formula was really starting to come into its own all right, Well that kind of makes sense in a way. Everyone's like vying for that space in the industry even back then. Uh. And the

earliest models are probably what you think. It's basically a cow milking machine that's been modified slightly. Um, look like a vacuum and a hand pump. But it was and this is something I had no idea. UM as far as a consumer delivered at home product, it's only been around since about when uh Madela introduced the first at home electric po houred. Uh, you can you can have it in your as a consumer use breast pump. Yeah, right up to I had no idea it was that new,

right Yeah and verse since then. There's just a really great Jillapoor article from the New York Or called Baby Food where she kind of chronicles the rise of the breast pump. But she points out that since nine um, sales of Medella's model alone had quadrupled and they become ubiquitous, you know. Um. Then they started out as a medical device like, if your baby couldn't um, couldn't nurse, you could still feed your baby breast milk by using these pumps.

And it was a medical intervention that became a consumer product, And the reason it's spread and popularity like wildfire is because it makes uh, breastfeeding mom's life exponentially more awesome then if they're just nursing. Yeah, I mean that obviously has the advantages of freeing mom up by being able to bank that milk on her own. H. Then dad

can help feed, and babysitter, daycare worker can help feed. Uh. Mom can sleep through the night, maybe even if you know dad is a good dad and a good husband. She can go to the store by herself. Uh, well, what do you mean. Well, I mean, rather than having to to feed every two hours or to express milk every two hours, she can go as far as I've seen up to like six hours between expressions, right, So you can fit a lot of time away by yourself in that six hours rather than too Yeah, I hear you.

It's another big one. Uh. It also made things way easier in the workforce. Obviously, we we did touch on the yesterday with UM. As of two thousand and ten. Here in the United States, UM employers are required to provide these break times in a private place. But it's not like we had a lovely lactation room in our last office. We actually recorded it in there once. I think I actually was studying in there once, UM, and

I was like elactation room. But it didn't occur to me like that was a lactation room at all times rather than just when uh, somebody was in there pumping. UM. So I was in there studying because it was very quiet and comfortable before I finally got cooked out and it dawned on me that, oh, that's the lactation room all the time. I should probably steer clear of that place. Here,

and they're smoking a cigarette pretty much doing shots of whiskey. Uh. And you mentioned a second ago that UM the breast pump allowed women if their baby had troubled nursing. One of the issues that can happen. It's called nipple confusion. And it is UM, not confusion which is a little confusing. UM. It is not the baby doesn't know like whether or not it's mom's nipple or a bottle nipple. It's that

the baby actually has a preference for the bottle nipple. Right, Yeah, the baby has been introduced to the bottle in an now that the mom's like, okay, don't forget about the boob. The baby's like, no, no, no, I'm I'm pretty hip on the bottle instead. Let's just stick with that. Yeah. I think it's it's a little easier, supposedly right for a baby to feed from a bottle, easier for the baby, that is right. It employs gravity more than the um the breast does, and the baby has to work less.

And since babies are inherently lazy. Um, they're like, I like the bottle more. I just I don't understand why it was ever called nipple confusion, and I couldn't find the origin of it, although I bet you nipple preference just sounded mean, I guess. So. Yeah, like they were

worried that the mom would take it as rejection. Uh, And so they say, experts do that if you want to try and avoid that potential at least that you want to at least try and breastfeed if that's what you're gonna do for two weeks before the baby sees any sort of bottled nipple. Yeah, right, you want him to get good at breastfeed thinks so they can remember how right it seems? Smart? Yeah, you're lazy, little dumb baby is smarter and not as lazy as you think.

No or confused, that's right. So, um, if you are going with formula, there's a lot of different types available, as I'm sure you know more than me. Even um. From what I've found though, that almost all of the milk based ones, which is the standard version, all of the milk based versions are almost exactly the same. Yeah, there there are things that the FDA requires be present, so you're gonna see a lot of the same stuff. Um, should we go through the list here? I love this list, Yes,

go ahead. Protein, fat, vitamin C, A, D, E, K B one, B two, B six and B twelve, niacin delicious, folic acid, love it, pantathemic acid, Calcium, How do you feel about phosphorus? It's a little sneaky. Magnesium, iron, zinc, here's the best one. Manganese It's like a mongoose and a mango mixed together. Copper, iodine, sodium, potassium, and chloride. Why do they always put potassium and chloride together? Have

you ever noticed that? I don't know one thing that you may not find in your formula you probably won't is a fluoride supplement. And the guy who wrote the house Stuff Works article is just cuckoo for fluoride. Wants to make sure that your baby has fluoride coming out of his or her ears. Um, which you know, mambivalent on that. Well they do say um. I think the American Academy of Pediatric says no fluoride supplements at all two babies six months or younger. Oh is that right? Good?

Good to add that because fluorosis is a concern in that case. That's not what this guy is saying, so you could catch He's clearly doesn't work for the American Academy Pediatrics. The thing about UM formula, though, is, like you, you would like to think it's all pure and wonderful and like the best ingredients, And there are some out there, and I'm sure they're mondo expensive right. Uh yeah, I mean, you know, the good organic formula is a little pricier,

for sure. But there's also ones that are like they appear to be almost junk food for babies. Well yeah, I mean read the read those labels, uh, for sure, like corn syrup and artificial sweeteners and corn starch sweeteners. I mean, do what you want, but I would avoid that stuff sure, And I'm sure a lot of people aren't a percent aware that that stuff is in there. Um there their baby food. And I mean a lot of it's disguise like multidextrin sounds natural, but that's corn.

That's corn starch sweetener. I don't think that sounds natural at all, But it sounds like it's It sounds like a quarterback for like a middling Midwest college or something like that, multi extron takes the field. It sounds like that hardy Mid America kind of thing. All right, it's not coastal at all. No, it's not coastal. Uh. If your little baby has intolerance to milk um, like a milk allergy, you can get those soy protein or coconut

milk um formulas. Still they're still out there, but they now have the proper extra nutrients added, which they did not used to have, right, And you can also get did you say coconut too? Yeah? Yeah, I like the sound of that one. Coconut Sure, coconut anything's good. Yeah. I tried the formula ones. How is it? Is it sweet? At all, or are these sweeeners just strictly for carbohydrate sake. I don't remember how sweet it was. I don't think I got enough to really. Oh, I see this is

after a couple of scotches. Let me see that right bottle? Not that bottle. The the speaking of sweeteners, though, if you want to get close to breast milk the sweetener, you want to look for the main sweetening ingredient in your formulas. Lactose. Okay, lactose, but then, like you said, you may find out that your kid is lactose intolerant, in which case you have some alternatives, especially soy and coconut, which is my favorite. So uh, formula, you're gonna have

a few choices. You can have, um, like what they'll give you in the hospital. A lot of times is that just the bottles already pre packaged and pre made, which obviously it doesn't get any easier than that. You just pop the top and go at it, pre measured and everything, and those are okay, yeah, I mean those come in a variety of kinds as well, like from probably ones that um aren't as great, to the more expensive,

better ones. UM, it's basically just the pre made version of the powder that you might buy right right then, the fact that they already measured out the precise amountain added the water and shook it all together. Already, that's what you're paying for the convenience, I guess. In other words, Yeah, but you know it's their disposable, so you're you're I mean, you're recycling the bottles hopefully, but it's still something that

you it's it's a one use thing. Okay. So then you've got your concentrates and your powders, and um, price and convenience are kind of what play in here according to what you're gonna go with in addition to what little b b will will want to eat. You know, some babies are like, I don't I don't like that. I reject your formula. Give me another one, or this one makes me have reflux or makes me super gassy. Yeah. That was the thing that I saw too, that that

even the formulas are virtually all the same. Um. Yeah, your baby might have a strong preference for one over another. I think such a triumph. Yeah, I think that the thing the recipes are tweaked because there can I mean, some of them say like, uh, for gas, problems specifically and stuff like that. So there must be some either a little less of something or maybe a little more of something would be my guess. And I'm just I'm flying off the cuff here, So if I got that wrong,

I'm sorry. One of the other things that UM formula requires is really good water, yes, UM, which again the author of the House to Folks article, who apparently is unaware of fluorosis UM says just use tap water. You can totally use cold tap water. And he does say you never want to use hot tap water when you're creating formula because if you do have UM lead plumbing anywhere connecting to your house, hot water will leach it out. More.

When we covered that big time, our one about Flint, Michigan, remember that, UM, So you want to use cold tap water, I would say use filtered waters the first formula. Sure, but if you if you're just using it out of the tap, and in the rule of thumb is if you can drink the tap water safely, uh, your baby should be able to as well. But UM, just be

sure to use cold water. Yeah. And in fact, I think for the first a little while we were even using spring water just to be like those first few weeks or you know, until you get a little more comfortable or a little bit like all right, like I'm doing everything right. Yeah, no, I don't blame me, man, And then you get a little more relaxed you're like, oh, you know, babies are pretty hardy little monsters, you know.

And apparently also like I was surprised that they'll they'll take formula cold, but um, apparently they'll take a cold right out of the fridge. Well, it depends, well, it depends on the baby. Well, yeah, like, um, some babies like no, no, no, no, heat that heat that stuff up? Right. Well, when you're heating it up, you only want to run it under hot tap water, in which case it's fine because you're not actually adding the hot tap war you're just using it to run out on the outside of

the bottle, right to heat it up. Yeah, I'm gonna advise against that. Okay, how do you heat it up? Then? Because I saw I don't use a microive, Well, there's you can buy a bottle warmer, which is basically like a just a little round thing with that you have water in the bottom that boils it like a tea kettle. It's like a water bath. Yeah, it's a little water bath.

But the reason I suggest that is if it takes a long time to to warm it up under tap water, and so you're literally like just running water for like five minutes, well that's a that's a good that's kind of wasteful. You're right, And at first I was likely bottle warmer. They try to sell you all this junk. Literally was like that, and you know, I tried it.

I was like, look, you can just put in a coffee cup and put some hot water in there, but that cools off like really quick, and the bottle warmer was like fifteen dollar urs that You're like, well, look you can just put the coffee cup on the stove, turn the stove off, turn it on. Yeah. Emily was basically like, get the bottle warmer done and it's infinitely easier.

You just just click it on. It's got a little time or for a couple of minutes or whatever, and it heats it up and you're not wasting as much water. That's that's cool, But in a pinch, like when you're out and about, you definitely like the running it undertap water works. I think there's two things then that the federal government should give every new parent at least a year's supply of infant formula, good stuff, and a bottle warm, like just for just for being an American, you should

get that. Yeah. What what country is it sweet where they give him the box? Norway? Is it Norway? I don't know. I think I think it's one of those I'm sure. Oh, I know what you're talking about. The box can be used as like a baby like a crib even yeah. Oh, I think it is a Nordic country and it's like this old tradition that they still do. And uh. I think I posted something about it and I was like, what in the world, and all these women are like, no, dude, it's the best, like they're

doing it right. Yeah, but I can't remember. It was some sort of baby box. Yeah, yeah, I know what you're talking about. And I think it came with stuff in it, but then you take the stuff out of it and then you put your baby in it. Right, I have to look into that. I think I'm describing it correctly. And the baby's like echo. Uh So when you get your bottles and your nipples, when you decide on the ones, they're a bunch of them out there.

But when you decide on the one that works, that you like and that works for baby, um, you you want to sterilize it right out of the package by boiling it. But then after that you can just wash it in the dishwasher with hot water, supposedly unless your house operates on well water, in which case you may want to be a little more um steril ific you uh. And in two thousand twelve they banned b p A uh for baby bottles because b p A has been shown to leach from its uh plastic containers the products

when heated up. And so since twelve, anything you buy won't will be b p A free. But if people, I mean, that wasn't that long ago. So people are like, here, take my old bottles or you know, have my handy downs. You gotta look, um, look on the bottom and if you see a number seven on the bottom or PC, yeah, then it might have b p A. So you should just try and get a new one. Yeah. And you don't be also lulled into complacency by things that say b p A free, because they may be certified even

b p A free. But two replacements that have come to stand in for b p A. BPS and BPF are apparently just as bad endocrine endocrine disruptors as b p A. So what you really want to do is just avoid any clear plastic bottles. You want to use the opaque kind because they're usually made of polyethylene or polypropylene, and you want to go with ones that have the recycling symbol with the number two or the number five in them. Those are legitimately free of bp A or

or bisphenols of any kind. Yeah, they should put a little baby with the thumbs up. They they they should just yes, they shouldn't have taken this many years for I'm just the whole bp A thing really gets me going, Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. I mean it's only four years ago. They're like, oh, wait a minute, it's leaching when you heat it up into your baby's food. Yeah, well well wait, we're making money off of it. Sorry to see. That's what I'm saying. You can get glass bottles now. Back

in the day, that was all you would see obviously. Uh. And they still make great glass bottles, and they're a bit heavier um to hold they so you can break if you drop them. But you've seen a lot of places like the hazards of dropping and breaking a bottle. I mean, it's not that big of a hazard. It's like it's like any I mean, if you unless you don't have any glass in your house at all, you

could always drop a glass. Sure. Also, I know these things aren't the most fragile things you've rent countered, sick and heavy, So they just cracked the baby's face if you drop I guess that's a bigger hazard than it breaking. Right. Uh no, I mean all right, you should be holding that bottle, you know, which we're gonna get into, right, Yeah, you want to take a break first. Hey, so Chuck, I saw something. Um I think I said you don't want a microwave baby bottles? Did you know that? I didn't?

But um, we we we don't really use a microwave at all, so not an issue. Well, the reason why you don't want to is because microwaves heat basically from the inside out. So when you grab the bottle and you're like, oh, it's lukewarm. The stuff that you're touching on the outside is lukewarm, but the stuff inside might be really hot, and you don't want to hurt baby.

I guess we should also say anytime you give baby formula unless it's directly out of the fridge, and even then, why not, Um, you want to shake a little on the underside of your forearm, right because it's a very sensitive area in your skin and you'll be able to tell whether it's hot or not. I would drop it in my eye. That's a good one. It's very sensitive.

I'll bet that spring water doesn't hurt at all. All right, So, um, like you said, some babies don't mind it cold, or after a while they've may be like, all right, cold is fine with me. But you're still gonna want to, uh, you still want to hold and feed your baby, You don't. You don't like set your baby down on a couch and hand your baby a bottle and walk away, because a for a while, that's not even possible. Um, although I will say, once the baby can hold the bottle,

it's pretty neat. Yeah, but you know you still want to be there. But you're you know, you want to still be there and provide eye contact and that closeness. Um. You know, it's a big part of it. Yeah, that's a huge part of it. Also. I mean, we talked about it in the breast episode. Um, skin on skin contact has a lot to do with social development in brain development with babies due to oxytocin release. But that doesn't just come from breastfeeding. So anytime you're feeding a baby,

you basically should be shirtless from what I'm gathering. Um, So that and you way you hold a baby, whether you're bottle feeding it, whether you're best feeding it, whether you're the neighbor or the maleman who's been invited to come beat and meet the baby and feed it, you want to take your shirt off first so that the baby's got some form of skin to skin contact while she's she's eating. I never did that. Well, I it's I don't think it's ever too late. Yeah. Now I

would be like, what are you doing? Um, it's a new thing we're trying. So, Uh, you don't want to have your baby laying down flat. Um. You want your baby the head elevated a little bit or you know, flat out sitting up. If they have reflux problems, you may have to experiment a little bit with that angle. Um. But uh, the one thing you definitely don't want to do is just prop the bottle because that has four specific problems that can happen, uh ear infections, perhaps because

the formula just floats right into the middle ear. Yeah, um, feeding longer then uh they might normally um and then decreased emotional and physical satisfaction from getting held right and

apparently also increases the potential for cavities too. Yeah. So I mean this is like we're talking about you shouldn't put your baby down into like even if your baby can hold the bottle, you shouldn't lay your baby down in a crib like a bedtime and say here's your bottle to put you to sleep and then leave the room because and that and this is a little bit different than just bottle propping. But there are a lot

of uh dangers there. One tooth decay of course, because the last thing that should happen is toothbrushing, uh, ear infections, choking, and then just this sleep association. Um, you don't want your baby to be dependent on having that bottle to fall asleep, right, You're not doing yourself any favors there,

and sleep training, good point. So that's in the crib, leaving the baby with the bottle slightly different the bottle and sure, um, when you are feeding an actual infant um and you have to hold them up basically and feed them with the bottle. Um. One of the one of the things I think you said was that you you have a lot of um opportunity for eye contact. Right, it's one of the benefits of holding the baby water feeding.

But you also want to be sure to hold the baby with your left arm one time and then the next time hold the baby through right arm and just keep going back and forth, because apparently their eyes can develop um uh. One one can develop more strongly than the other. If it's if the baby is fed facing the same way all the time, baby, you'll look up. It's it's funny, it's intuitive. But I could totally see

not even thinking about that, never thought about it. Yeah. Uh. You want to keep that um nipple full of milk at all times, which means keeping it uh point down, because you want to decrease the amount of air, because that will make your baby gassy. The more air that baby drinks are swallows while eating the gassier. Uh. He's gonna be right. And when you are feeding your baby, apparently it's good to to burp him midway between the feeding.

Definitely after each feeding yeah, midway for a while and then eventually um just after and burping is they're there are different ways from over the shoulder, like the sort of classic over the shoulder. You want to go high though, and make sure there's some pressure on the abdomen um too, putting just sitting a baby on your lap sideways and holding her under the chin, uh and then padding the back or just across the lap again with the pressure

on the abdomen and you know you want to. People are a little timid, I think at first because little tiny babies seem so fragile, but they're not as f toil as you think, and just tiny little soft pats is doing literally nothing to get that burp out. So if you've ever had a nurse do it for you and show you, or your mom or someone who's had a few kids, you might be like, oh my god, my baby, you're beating my baby. But that's what you

want to do. I mean, obviously you don't want to, you don't don't want to like strike them, but a good firm pat is what it takes to get that burp out. Like, don't be shy and uh in my case, uh, my daughter never really burped much from burping. I would try and try and then be like, all right, I

guess she's good. And then she would like sit up and go on her own, and you know, and then she's kind of smiling sort of and um, you know, I mean whatever you can do to get that little burp out, and burp doesn't always come out, so if you try it for a few minutes it doesn't happen, then you know they might be good. Yeah, which I'll be is not not into it all that. Some babies have just been pounded on for days because the parents yea burp so chuck. Um you were saying before that, Um.

One of the great things about bottle feeding is that it allows other people to share in some of the feeding as well. Right, Um, it's not as mom who's responsible for feeding the baby, dads can too and other people, like I said, the male carrier whoever. Um. But the the idea that it's not just um sharing responsibility but also like an opportunity to get to like get closer to your kid as a dads has got to be pretty appealing as far as the concept of bottle feeding goes, right,

you know, like it's when you're breastfeeding. Apparently there's a U there is a phenomenon among some some men where they actually become jealous of either their wife or their baby. You're both because of the bond that's being formed in the amount of attention and time that's being given to the baby through breastfeeding. Yeah, I've heard of that. You have heard of it. I hadn't heard of it until I ran into this. Yeah, I've heard of it. I mean i'd say, just getting their dad and you can

still be a part of things. Yeah, yeah, you totally your breastfeeding. Well, I'll just go in the other room then, you know, like sit down with them. Yeah yeah, I say, can your act together? Ye? Getting jealous of your baby because it's being breastfed. Uh. As far as when, um, there are a couple of methods of feedings, UM, demand feeding versus scheduled Uh. I only have my own experience, which was my daughter just fell into her own routine basically,

and it worked out to be a scheduled routine. UM that was pretty pretty tight, like you know, down to the you know, ten or fifteen minutes apart on a daily basis when it was clear it So it ended up being scheduled, but she sort of set the schedule. That means it's pretty cool, you know. Um, but you know,

there are two different schools of thought. You can try and stick to that schedule, um, but you may be you know, pushing that that rock up the hill constantly, in which case you might want to think about demand feeding, which is I feed my baby when my baby says they're hungry. Yeah, and I was, I was researching this and I was like, well, it seems like setting the schedules the smartest thing to do. And then I thought, oh, well, the baby kind of lets you know when here she's hungry,

and it doesn't necessarily stick to the schedule. So I'm sure the idea of sending the schedules goes right out the window and the baby's like screaming, you know. So yeah. The problem with demand feeding, though, is that, um, your baby might come to say, oh, this is this is enough, This will be enough for this hour. I'll see you in another hour and do that like fifteen times a day. Yeah. One thing I do recommend, and uh is to track it.

Uh we we just got it like a viral notebook and track to the times and the amounts because even though you think like no, no, no, I'm keeping up with it. It's it's really easy to forget how much they've had that day, and you don't want to over feed them or underfeed there. So just yeah, we just kept a little daily log made it super easy. Did you get the spiral notebook? Warmer too? Did? Actually it was very nice. Nice, it's good. At first I was like,

who needs it? But then every time I put it on my lap it was all cold, and so, oh, this is nice. Yeah, that's very nice. So so as a dad being able to feed your your kid, I mean, like that that has to be pretty special, right, it's the best. Yeah, And that is one of the huge benefits of bottle feeding that that the dad gets to

do that too. Um. And just kind of from the research, I got the impression that a lot of dad's kind of take this hands off thing where it's like, that's your thing, you feed the baby, I'll I'll go make some money outdoors or something like that, right, And and the the idea of the dad being involved in the feeding, Like that's part of the thing about bottle feeding the kids that the dad can be involved, and so the dad should be involved probably in more ways than he

even imagines in a lot of cases too. Yeah, like not just actually feeding the baby, but actually knowing how much formula is needed to prepare and that kind of stuff. Yeah, just like, be involved is the best advice. And that's kind of what this article says that you sourced here. Like, you know, don't be a chromagnant or a dad from

like the nineteen thirties. You know, just be involved. Like if if, uh, your wife is breastfeeding or bottle feeding and she wants to do it, and she likes a nice quiet scene and she doesn't want the dogs barking and stuff like set up the bedroom and light a candle, take the dogs on a walk, but on some music like run interference. If the phone rings, you know, go

get the phone. Just like, be involved, right, and if you're if your wife or if the mom does choose to breastfeed, if that is where you guys go with it. There's also other stuff you can do too that that isn't just feeding. Like you in the middle of the night, you can go get the baby, bring baby two moms, or take baby back to bed, hang out with baby for a little while while you're burping him or her UM.

There's a lot of stuff you can do, including apparently unwavering support with whatever choice the mom makes as far as or you and the mom, I should say make um as far as feeding the baby goes, especially apparently when it comes to breastfeeding, because again, um, I guess studies have shown that the dad's support, encouragement, and involvement in the choice to breastfeed UM has a huge impact on how long breastfeeding continues. To imagine, but I I

would guess the same thing goes for formula. To Like, if you're a mom who decided it that you just want to feed your baby formula, you're gonna catch a lot of statics. So if you're the dad, you should be able to run interference for her as well to um with friends, family, all that chance. Yeah, go fight somebody. Yeah, it's funny. All this stuff seems just intuitive to me and guys like you who you know, it's not like husband wife chores. It's like we just all support each other.

But I have like friends that you know, like, oh I didn't wake up you know when my wife would did? What could I do? And I'm like, what year is it? I don't have boobs, like, dude, play play a part, Get up, get out of bed, right, I mean maybe not every time, like maybe you can work out the schedule and stuff, or maybe your wife is like, no, you totally sleep through the night tonight, but you know, offer sure, And you know, I bet your wife might say, yeah,

that'd be great. Go get the baby, bring it to me. Yeah. I thought you'd never ask take her back burper. Yeah. This this kind of stuff reminds me of that that parenting class that margin Homer Simpson had to go to you once, and the instructors like, remember you place your milk in the refrigerator or barring that in a cool wet sack, you know, and Homer was just writing it all down. Get involved, guys, get your head out of your key stir. This is what I say. What else

you got? I got nothing else? Oh? This article from House to Work says don't feed your baby junker, junk food or alcohol. Dad's yeah we forgot about that part. I'm sure I know that that was huge in the seventies, like here's have a little beer, baby, dip that pacifier and whiskey. Yeah you know they used to Yeah, they used to do stuff like that. There was like this, Um, what's the I guess it was colic? Is that that's the one where the baby's just crying NonStop? Right? Yeah?

Colic is uh supposed to be I'm not supposed to be. It's terrible. There was a colic remedy um that it was basically consistent of like these needles and like you just kind of scraped the baby's skin with it, and the active ingredient was morphine that trickled down the needles and entered the baby's blood stream and that's what cured the colic. Wow. Yeah, they used to do all sorts of crazy stuff up to again about the seventies. Actually,

I do have one more thing. I would just offer a general advice to hang in there if you're a new parent. Um, Emily and I got super super lucky with great sleep habits and great eating habits and just all this intuitive stuff that we had nothing to do with. Um, you can try your best to do everything you can, and you may feel helpless because that little, that little uh model of sunshine is ruling your household and you you might be trying your darnists for sleep or for

eating and this and that and nothing is working. And um, you know it's not your fault like hanging there, because it will change. And that goes for good stuff. Just when you think everything's going great, something will change and then you'll take two steps back, just you know, hanging there. It'll all work itself out. So the government should give every new parent a good formula, a bottle warmer, and one of those hanging yeah, and one of those hanging

their kiddie posters inspirational posts. If you want to know more about breastfeeding well, brothers and sisters, there is plenty more to it. Um. You can just start researching online, talk to a doctor you trust, electation consultant, uh, friend who's breastfed, a friend who's used formula. Put it all together. Form your own opinion. Uh. And in the meantime, since I said form your own opinion, it's time for a listener.

May all. I'm gonna call this a a suggestion. We don't usually read suggestions, but this I've never heard of this, dude, so I'm reading it. Um. John Evans, a young man from North Wales the very late eighteenth century, agreed to explore the American interior with his friend, uh. Yolo morgen Wig. I think they specifically said it's not yolo. I think you're right. It's like they said that. Oh was like, you're right, people say yolo, but Welsh people don't care

for that. Sorry about that. So they didn't say how to pronounce it though, they like, just figure it out yourself, chumps. That says you say that, Oh like the first one octopus and the h l or I as a yeah, so iyoway, I'll I'll try and be brief. He tried to discover a Welsh speaking tribe in Middle America linked to the Mandan tribes. We're talking like Patagoni here, not Ohio. He went to London, sale to Boston. Uh, well, maybe it's talking about Ohio. Uh. Then just walked and walked

the land. Worked for the Spanish mapping out the land, which quickly become his auxiliary task, one that he was very good at. Lewis and Clark actually uses maps for the majority of their own famous expedition. Uh. Yeah. He was sort of a diplomat, securing passage up the Mississippi from the native tribes who then controlled it. Then headed to New Orleans before realizing no such tribes existed. Um. Apparently he's like, well it was, it was worth a try.

Apparently the guy from Super Furry Animals Um Griff rise Rees Griff Reese. By the way, did you ever like them? Did you? Oh? Yeah, yeah, I was into them for a while. Like they opened um for Granddaddy one time, and you won't find a bigger Granddaddy fan than me. But they like it was one of the few times where the opening act blew the mains act off the stage from Oh yeah that that dude is a genius

musically intellectually he's awesome. Yeah, I agree, and I like them um as a band, but like I was not expecting that out of the live show. Yeah, like it blew my mind. Are they still around? I don't know. I don't think so. I know they had an album like in the last several years, last few years. I need to get back into that anyway, and not to not Grand Daddy. Of course they were still great. Uh. He from Super Furry Animals made a book, a film, an app and an album about the story and retraced

his journey in person. What I believe he is actually distantly related. Oh that's cool. We gotta check that out. Yeah, for sure. So he said this will make a great podcast. Dudes, do yourselves a favorite a least and look up the book American Interior and the same title as the album and give it a read. So that is from David Evans and I'm totally going to look that up. It's a call again American Interior. And then the guy's name was John Evans, nice the explorer. Well, thanks a lot

who wrote them? Who wrote in now David Evans and alive lots of Evans going on. Thanks a lot, David. We appreciate that forgiving us that heads up. Will definitely check it out. If you want to get in touch with us like David did, you can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast or Josh um Clark. You can hang out with Chuck on Facebook at Chuck Charles W. Chuck Bryant at Facebook dot com. Uh, you can hang out with us at Facebook dot com, slash

stuff you Should Know too. You can send us an email stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff Works dot com