How to choose milk powder for your children

Introduction

There are a few things you should consider when choosing the best milk powder in Malaysia for your children. Mothers’ milk should always be the primary source of nutrients for children until they are at least one year old. However, if the mother, for some reason, can’t breastfeed or if she is looking to enrich the child’s diet with certain minerals or vitamins, here are some of the things you should consider when buying formulas.

There are many different choices for milk powder in Malaysia, and depending on your situation, we hope that we will help you understand better what is the perfect choice for your child. Keep in mind that the best formula for your child will always be the one that your pediatrician recommends.

It is not possible to make anything that is as nutritious as a mother’s milk. Still, milk formulas are often recommended for children that lack a specific nutrient in their diet or if the mother isn’t able to breastfeed for a particular reason.

Formula’s primary goal is to replace or imitate the mother’s milk, yet there are various types of formulas. The three most common formulas you will encounter are specialized formulas, cow milk formulas, and soy formulas.

Cow Milk Formula

Cow Milk Formula is the most common formula you can find on a shelf in your local store. This type of formula is often recommended to children that have an iron deficiency. Cow milk formula is the most similar to breast milk. Even though the basis for this formula is cow’s milk, the milk is heavily treated so that babies can easily digest the nutrients.

Cow milk formulas are probably the best choice for babies, many of the formulas are rich in nutritients, and have added probiotics to help the baby with digesting.

There are few downsides of the cow milk formula. Babies can be lactose intolerant, this means that the babies’s stomach can’t digest lactose. This is the most common negative side effect that may occur when babies drink milk or milk based formulas.

In such cases, the most common symptoms of lactose intolerance are diarhea, bloating, gas, and cramping.

Another possibility in which you would want to switch to a soy based alternative, or to stop using the milk formula overall, is in case of the baby having milk allergy. Milk allergy may have the same symptoms as being lactose intolerant plus swelling, vomiting, coughing, itching, etc.

Hopefully, both of these cases are extremely rare and your baby will probably have no problems with drinking milk based formulas.

Soy based Formulas

The second most common alternative to mothers milk is soy based formulas. The proteins and carbohydrates contained in the formula are very different to those from the cow milk based formulas. Even though there are certain nutrients in cow based formulas that are extracted from plants, and they have added vegetable oil, proteins and carbohydrates are still animal based.

When it comes to soy formula, all of the nutrients are plant based. Soy formulas are most often used when the babies have a brief period of lactose intolerance or for personal and enviormental reasons. Many vegetarian or vegan parents see the soy based formula as the alternative.

As I mentioned earlier, babies can sometimes have an allergy or problems with digesting milk, in such cases, soy based formulas are the perfect choice. Before making the choice or determining that your baby has such a disorder, you should first have a talk with your pediatrician.

There aren’t many proofs of soy formulas being especially beneficial or more nutritious than cow based formulas, and certain factors may make them undesirable. There are multiple concerns with soy formulas, the main one is that the soy is overall rich in isoflavones. Isoflavones are plant compounds similar to estrogen. It is speculated that these compounds may make the babies have higher estrogen levels in the long term.

Other concerns are aluminium levels and phytate levels. Aluminium can have a negative impact on the baby’s development while the phytate is an antinutrient, this means that it has a negative impact on the baby’s ability to absorb nutrients.

Hydrolyzed formulas

These formulas are often fed to babies that have hard times digesting certain proteins. This type of formula is often called “predigested”, which means that the proteins were already broken down so the babies can digest it easily. Hydrolyzed formulas are a better alternative than the soy based formulas, but they are more expensive than them.

Hydrolyzed formulas are usually recommended by the pediatrician since they are most often given to babies that have a certain problem or an allergy.

Specialized formulas

Just like hydrolyzed formulas are given to the babies with certain digesting problems, these formulas are given to babies with certain conditions. Even though the best food for premature babies is mothers milk, on ocassions when its not possible, they are usually fed these specialized formulas.