Milk and Infants

This article should be required reading for every mother getting ready to feed milk to her infant. Here are some of the highlights.

1. "The feeding of cow's milk has adverse effects on iron nutrition in infants and young children."

2. "... occult intestinal blood loss, which occurs in about 40% of normal infants during feeding of cow's milk."

3. " Calcium and casein both inhibit the absorption of dietary nonheme iron."

4. "The feeding of cow's milk to infants is undesirable because of cow's milk's propensity to lead to iron deficiency and because it unduly increases the risk of severe dehydration."

Some of you are thinking, "Duh! Everyone knows you don't start kids on cow's milk until after their first birthday!"

Isn't it nice to know that after age 1, it magically turns into something incredibly healthy for you. Or do we just learn to tolerate it?