Dr. Howard Smith Oncall

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/j8mOrrCP-94 One study after another heralds the advantages of breastfeeding.  Some mothers turn to pumping their breast milk when their flow is sporadic or when they develop conflicts with sib childcare or the demands of work.  Do babies enjoy the same advantages from ingesting pumped breast milk? The short answer is an emphatic NO.  Researchers from Canada’s University of Manitoba studied the breast milk of almost 400 healthy mothers 3 to 4 months following delivery.  Using sophisticated genetic probes, they showed that the milk the babies actually ingested was healthier when it came directly from the mother’s breast.   The natural breast milk contained good bacteria from both the mother and from the mouth of the infant.  The pumped breast milk contained those bugs but also an abundance of bad bacteria, opportunistic types that are capable of causing respiratory disease It isn’t clear if the bad bugs come from contaminated breast pumps, but that is a likely possibility.  If you do u