Speaker 1: Hey, San Francisco, we're coming back to see you. Yes,
Speaker 1: our second year in a row. We're gonna be going
Speaker 1: to s F Sketch Fest. What I'd like to think,
Speaker 1: it's the premier comedy festival in the United States, probably
Speaker 1: well in the world, you think, so, Yeah, what about Beijing? Nope,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a close second, but a second. Well,
Speaker 1: we love San Francisco, we love performing there. Everyone is
Speaker 1: always so kind to us. And by San Francisco we
Speaker 1: mean the entire Bay area of course. Yeah, so we
Speaker 1: will be there doing our thing for one time only
Speaker 1: show on Sunday, January at one pm. Yeah, it's the
Speaker 1: rare Sunday afternoon. We're like the NFL of podcasters. Yeah right,
Speaker 1: that's that's what I've always thought. So all you have
Speaker 1: to do is go to the SF Sketch Fest site,
Speaker 1: look at the old calendar, and there are tons of
Speaker 1: great people performing. Oh yeah, So I suggest like just
Speaker 1: doubling down and getting tickets to all kinds of good
Speaker 1: shows for sure, And hurry up and get tickets to
Speaker 1: is because they've only been on sale for a week
Speaker 1: or so and they're already half sold out. That's right,
Speaker 1: So please hurry, San Francisco, please hurry. Welcome to Stuff
Speaker 1: You Should Know from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hey,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W.
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant, and we have guest producer Noel with us.
Speaker 1: And this is Stuff you Should Know, Part two. That's right.
Speaker 1: And actually things are gonna get weird because Noal is
Speaker 1: about to leave, I think, and then that means we're
Speaker 1: alone again. You never know what's gonna happen. The beating
Speaker 1: of our hearts is the only sound stuff you should
Speaker 1: know after dark. Let's got weird pretty quick. Uh. So
Speaker 1: this is part two of How Feeding Babies Works? Right,
Speaker 1: we're on the same page. Oh yeah, yeah, I hope so.
Speaker 1: Uh and part one I think went down pretty well.
Speaker 1: It's uh, it was a little nerve racking being two
Speaker 1: dudes at the risk of doing it wrong or or
Speaker 1: like you said, man splaining, which I I even hate
Speaker 1: saying that term. But I think we did a pretty
Speaker 1: good job. Yeah, we didn't come across as we were
Speaker 1: hanging on by just our fingernails like I felt for
Speaker 1: most of the time. I think we did all right too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and today we're gonna focus a lot more on formula feeding,
Speaker 1: which I feel much more comfortable because it's something I
Speaker 1: know a lot about. Right, Yeah, I figured you could
Speaker 1: probably deal a lot of heavy lifting on this one.
Speaker 1: Well it's not that heavy, just five or six ounces
Speaker 1: at a time. Terrible we uh Yeah, this one is
Speaker 1: the first. One is called the breast. This one is
Speaker 1: called the bottle. And yeah, you know, the bottle is
Speaker 1: well usually filled with formula, but there's plenty of other
Speaker 1: stuff you could fill with it, specifically breast milk, UM.
Speaker 1: But a lot of women start using bottles fairly early on,
Speaker 1: sometimes from the outset. And there's a lot of reasons why.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of reasons I guess, in other words,
Speaker 1: why UM women either choose not to or ultimately have
Speaker 1: chosen for them not to breastfeed UM. And one of
Speaker 1: the big ones that's actually pretty common is a condition
Speaker 1: called mass titis. And mess titis is basically an extremely
Speaker 1: extremely painful inflammation of the breast or breasts, I guess,
Speaker 1: in the worst case, which can be brought on by
Speaker 1: like sore cracked nipples, um or an infection in the
Speaker 1: breast block milk ducks. There's a lot of stuff they
Speaker 1: can bring it on and as painful as breastfeeding can be,
Speaker 1: Apparently the recommended treatment, of course of treatment for massitis
Speaker 1: is to keep on breastfeeding. That clearly, like actually the
Speaker 1: flow of milk through the breast clears up the inflammation
Speaker 1: and even the infection in some cases. And I was
Speaker 1: trying to figure that out, like how would that work?
Speaker 1: But then I remember breastmoke is so chuck full of
Speaker 1: anybodies that I guess it would deliver that antibodies to
Speaker 1: that site as well, right, wouldn't that That was the
Speaker 1: only thing I could come up with. Yeah, that makes sense,
Speaker 1: And you know, yes, or well actually did record We'll
Speaker 1: let the cat out of the bag. We're recording these
Speaker 1: on two super days even yeah, we usually do the
Speaker 1: sweets in one day. But uh yeah, we decided to
Speaker 1: sleep on it, right, And I think that's probably a
Speaker 1: good move. But yesterday when I mentioned my mother did
Speaker 1: not breastfeed me and she had some problems with my brother,
Speaker 1: I think that was the deal. I think there was,
Speaker 1: um it was pain and stuff like that. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I mean, like from what I can gather, mastitis is
Speaker 1: not just pain, like you feel very ill and run
Speaker 1: down and apparently you're supposed to get lots of bedrest
Speaker 1: and and nutritious fluids and express your milk every two
Speaker 1: hours and apparently and express yourself for that matter, right,
Speaker 1: which is probably amounts to, um, I'm in hell right now.
Speaker 1: Probably um. But the when you put all this stuff
Speaker 1: together on top of like all of the normal things
Speaker 1: that you have to do under the best of circumstances
Speaker 1: when caring for a newborn, this very frequently represents the
Speaker 1: last straw. For women who are like on the fence
Speaker 1: about breastfeeding. The mestiti is commonly leads them to say,
Speaker 1: we're done with that. I'm done with breastfeeding. That's one
Speaker 1: another one I came across that, Um, I hadn't really
Speaker 1: thought about that kind of surprised me, was boom jobs, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I never considered this until you did the research and
Speaker 1: that thought. Oh you know what, I never even thought
Speaker 1: about that. That's so out of my uh sphere of consciousness.
Speaker 1: That pretty uh oh. I don't think I meant that
Speaker 1: to be a pun was it? No, it wasn't. It was.
Speaker 1: It's a great T shirt, you know, like instead of
Speaker 1: talk to the hand, it's you are now out of
Speaker 1: my sphere of consciousness. Uh So if you do get
Speaker 1: breast implants, Um, it kind of depends on the reasons why,
Speaker 1: how it's done. Uh, where it's actually done obviously in
Speaker 1: the breast area, but they have we haven't done one
Speaker 1: of breast implants have, dude. One of our better episodes
Speaker 1: is on breast implant Really. Yeah, I remember I said
Speaker 1: I wanted to see what a breast I plant looks
Speaker 1: like on a dog because apparently they practice on dogs
Speaker 1: early on. Yeah, that was a great episode from beginning
Speaker 1: to end. It was a long time ago though. Um So,
Speaker 1: getting back to it. The the incisions, it depends on
Speaker 1: where they're made. If they go across the nipples are arela,
Speaker 1: it's probably likely that your milk ducks in the nerves
Speaker 1: were cut, which means you probably can't breastfeed exactly. But
Speaker 1: if you had a good doctor and they went like
Speaker 1: into your armpit underneath your breast, they probably also specifically
Speaker 1: chose to save those nerves and go around them. So
Speaker 1: if your incisions are under your breast, around your armpit, uh,
Speaker 1: you you probably are able to breastfeed. I imagine that's
Speaker 1: a part of the conversation when you go in there,
Speaker 1: don't you think probably, Bie, like, hey, do you want
Speaker 1: to have kids or do you have kids or do
Speaker 1: you want a breastfeed? Yeah, like I would. I don't know,
Speaker 1: I've never I've never had a consultation. No, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it does seem reasonable that that would be
Speaker 1: part of it, for sure, I would think so. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: The other thing, if you still have feeling in your nipples,
Speaker 1: that's a good sign that the nerves are still intact. Uh.
Speaker 1: And sometimes that takes a little while to come back though. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you just had your your breast augmentation surgery and
Speaker 1: the feeling isn't back, that doesn't mean it's not going
Speaker 1: to come back. So that's not a sign. But if
Speaker 1: it's been years now and you have feeling back in
Speaker 1: your nipples, you probably can can breastfeed. Where you got
Speaker 1: your implants counts too. If it's in the actual memory tissue, UM,
Speaker 1: that's gonna be a problem. It's going to get in
Speaker 1: the way of milk production. But if they put it
Speaker 1: under your chest muscles, which is more involved but um
Speaker 1: is basically out of the way of your your actual breasts,
Speaker 1: you can um probably breastfeed. I feel like I should
Speaker 1: be finishing each one of these with you're probably your redneck.
Speaker 1: You know, you probably can breastfeed if the implant is
Speaker 1: on the back of your neck. The good news is
Speaker 1: you can breastfeed, but you probably made a grave error
Speaker 1: in your choice of doctors. Then you might be a redneck. Uh,
Speaker 1: you'd be a boob neck. Uh. And then the reason
Speaker 1: for having it is another UM factor. If you if
Speaker 1: you just got the breast implants because you wanted larger
Speaker 1: breast and it was purely cosmetic, then you probably are
Speaker 1: a better candidate for breastfeeding. Whereas if you got implants
Speaker 1: because the tissue was never developed, or there was maybe
Speaker 1: asymmetric problems, or if the breasts were far apart from
Speaker 1: one another, Like, these are reasons that you may not
Speaker 1: be able to breastfeed. And again I imagine in the
Speaker 1: console this will all be coward Yeah, Like if you
Speaker 1: got breast augmentation because your memory tissue didn't develop properly
Speaker 1: or normally, then um, yeah, you might not be able
Speaker 1: to breastfeed. So those are a couple. There's plenty of
Speaker 1: other reasons why a woman would choose not to breastfeed. Um.
Speaker 1: In large part it's a matter of preference right. Some
Speaker 1: women just simply don't want a breastfeed. Some are afraid
Speaker 1: it's gonna hurt, Some are embarrassed by the idea. UM.
Speaker 1: In some families, it's a family tradition that you're raised
Speaker 1: on formula um. There's basically as many reasons for a
Speaker 1: woman to choose not to breastfeed as as as there
Speaker 1: are reasons, probably even more to tell you the truth.
Speaker 1: So let's die back in history a bit. We sort of, uh,
Speaker 1: I guess we usually do history first, but this is
Speaker 1: sort of woven in sensibly. I think um back in
Speaker 1: the day it was. It's kind of interesting. I have
Speaker 1: heard wet nurse my whole life. I've known that was
Speaker 1: a term, but I literally never knew what that was. Really. No,
Speaker 1: I don't know why. It's just maybe I'm a big dummy,
Speaker 1: but I had no idea that a wet nurse is
Speaker 1: a woman who breastfeeds someone else's child. It's funny, I
Speaker 1: did not know that, did you had? Did you think
Speaker 1: it was something else? So you just never stopped and
Speaker 1: thought about We never stopped and thought about it. I
Speaker 1: never needed one, so I was just like, yeah, and
Speaker 1: you know, put a wet nurse on it. Sure that help, right,
Speaker 1: that'll clear that bum nye right up? Is better than
Speaker 1: a dry nurse, right, sure, drying nurse. They're chapped and cracked.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's what what happens. Uh, And it was
Speaker 1: it's very common practice back in the day, especially before
Speaker 1: the feeding bottle was invented, and um, of course, as
Speaker 1: you would imagine, it was an alternative mainly for people
Speaker 1: of higher status. Yeah. Yeah, that's actually kind of fascinating.
Speaker 1: Um in that for a very very long time, except
Speaker 1: for a period between about eighteen thirty or eighteen twenty
Speaker 1: and eighteen no I'm sorry, eighteen fifty and eighteen eighty,
Speaker 1: when breastfeeding was all the rage in America, very much
Speaker 1: akin to the situation now. Breastfeeding was seen as what
Speaker 1: the um women of lower socioeconomic classes did, like, they
Speaker 1: can't afford a wet nurse, so they have to feed
Speaker 1: their baby exactly right, exactly or yeah, they like I
Speaker 1: would hire a woman of a lower socio economic class
Speaker 1: to feed my own baby, um, just because it just
Speaker 1: wasn't done this. Women didn't do that kind of thing
Speaker 1: if you were well off or well to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is is terrible, but you, Um, I never considered
Speaker 1: that a lot of mothers died during or not a lot,
Speaker 1: but plenty more mothers died during childbirth back then. And
Speaker 1: so that's a chance to save these babies, which is amazing.
Speaker 1: Sure truly, for sure, I mean like, and that's that's
Speaker 1: one way that wet nurses really did kind of keep
Speaker 1: things going. But for for a large part for about
Speaker 1: two thousand years, UM, breastfeeding or the use of wet
Speaker 1: nurses was basically what you what women of a higher
Speaker 1: status did they hired breasts or wet nurses, which is
Speaker 1: I had no idea. It's fascinating, it is, and even
Speaker 1: more to the point, uh, it kind of formed the
Speaker 1: basis of this idea that um, not breastfeeding was preferable
Speaker 1: to breastfeeding, that you were it was better to not
Speaker 1: breastfeed if you were able to write, it was the
Speaker 1: preference of the wealthier class, whereas the exact opposite is
Speaker 1: is the position today. They've completely switched positions today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this this author Katherine Joyce uh in The New Republic,
Speaker 1: UM basically said, you know, it's been a constant throughout
Speaker 1: history that whether whichever is in fashion, they think they're right, right,
Speaker 1: Like one is viewed as better than the other depends
Speaker 1: on where you are in history as to which that was.
Speaker 1: It's not equal, it's not different. One is clearly better,
Speaker 1: and in many cases, especially as the cases now concerning breastfeeding,
Speaker 1: is morally better in the view of the people who
Speaker 1: champion it, you know. Um, So for a very long
Speaker 1: time men have been extremely fascinated with breast milk or
Speaker 1: with feeding babies. Right, they've applied scientific inquiry to the
Speaker 1: whole thing, because I think that is part of it,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, well, yeah, but I mean we covered
Speaker 1: that yesterday. We could try all we wanted to wouldn't work,
Speaker 1: So maybe that is part of the reason. I hadn't
Speaker 1: really considered that. But there has been a lot of
Speaker 1: scientific inquiry. Ironically, it hasn't really come up with any
Speaker 1: set stuff. But as far back as um, I think
Speaker 1: ninety the nineties, just the nineties, not even the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 1: Years before the nineties, there is a guy named Serahnis
Speaker 1: of Theseus, and he was an early physician who basically
Speaker 1: wrote a twenty three chapter treatise on obstetrics and pediatrics
Speaker 1: and kind of gynecology, and one of the things he
Speaker 1: focused on was breast milk. Yeah, and his big contribution, well,
Speaker 1: one of the big contributions was a test for the
Speaker 1: consistency of breast milk that stood for about fifteen hundred years,
Speaker 1: which is pretty amazing. Well, because it's clearly infallible. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So here's what you do, is you, uh, you take
Speaker 1: a fingernail and you drop a drop of breast milk
Speaker 1: on the fingernail and I guess the fingernails facing up
Speaker 1: and you're flat with the finger. Uh. When it's on
Speaker 1: the fingernail and you move the finger, the milk is
Speaker 1: not supposed to be so watered down that it runs
Speaker 1: all over the nail. And when you point your fingernail down,
Speaker 1: it's not so thick that it uh turns into a
Speaker 1: transformer robot. Now, it's not so thick that it clings
Speaker 1: to the nail and that you're looking for somewhere in
Speaker 1: the middle. Is what he's says. And for years people said, yep,
Speaker 1: that's how you do it. Yeah. And so not only
Speaker 1: was that like, your breast milk is great, but also
Speaker 1: this wet nurse's breast milk is adequate for the contract
Speaker 1: you want to give her. Oh, sure, I never thought
Speaker 1: about that. Yeah, I probably had a lot to do
Speaker 1: with it, for sure. Um. And people also used animal
Speaker 1: milk as well. Apparently for the last two thousand years,
Speaker 1: there's evidence of people using animal milk. Um. But for
Speaker 1: for the most part it was wet nurses and then formula,
Speaker 1: artificial formula, which came back late nineteenth century. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: In the nineteenth century there was a guy named Eustace
Speaker 1: fun lie Big and he set about trying to create
Speaker 1: a perfect infant food and artificial breast milk, right, and
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty five he kind of cracked it. He
Speaker 1: made a liquid form and then a powdered form, and
Speaker 1: it was made up of cow's milk, wheat and malt,
Speaker 1: flour and potassium by carbonate. And when he came up
Speaker 1: with this in the eighteen sixties, um, it was considered
Speaker 1: like the perfect infant food, basically better than breast milk. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And by this point, this was about uh fifteen is
Speaker 1: years after the first feeding bottles were introduced in France.
Speaker 1: So people were ready like, we've got the bottle, we've
Speaker 1: we've worked out these very rudimentary cork nipples, and um,
Speaker 1: we need something to put in it besides breast milk
Speaker 1: and one of the other things that that UM came all.
Speaker 1: All this stuff kind of came together to form the
Speaker 1: basis of a successful formula feeding formula, right, um. And
Speaker 1: one of those was things like sterilization, pasteurization, germ theory,
Speaker 1: because in the early nineteenth century they were trying out
Speaker 1: like bottles and stuff like that, but it was killing
Speaker 1: infants left and right because they didn't know about sterilization,
Speaker 1: they didn't know about UM germ theory at the time.
Speaker 1: They I think something like one third of non breastfed
Speaker 1: babies died from being fed UM artificial milk. That's staggering,
Speaker 1: it is, that's a lot. So there was a huge
Speaker 1: breakthrough in the late nineteenth century when they came up
Speaker 1: with a decent formula that wasn't UM just animal milk,
Speaker 1: and that they could deliver it in some sort of
Speaker 1: feeding apparatus that wasn't gonna ultimately kill the baby, right,
Speaker 1: So that was a big deal. Yeah, And this is all,
Speaker 1: like I said, early eighteen fifties is when the bottle
Speaker 1: comes UM. Eighteen sixty five is when von lee Big
Speaker 1: developed his UM, and sort of a little before and
Speaker 1: a little after you had people like Gail Borden if
Speaker 1: that name rings a bell, uh, Eagle brand boarding condensed milk.
Speaker 1: She came up with that um at a sugar. I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure, Huh, it could be a boy. It sounds
Speaker 1: like it's just a man too, as a country western singer. No,
Speaker 1: Gael totally can be a guy's name. I just defaulted
Speaker 1: to lady because I don't know, because it's about breastfeeding,
Speaker 1: I guess, so he I guess added sugar to evaporated
Speaker 1: milk candid and that was condensed milk. And then about
Speaker 1: thirty years later, I mean, it became popular as an
Speaker 1: infant food. Obviously. Have you ever had condensed milk in
Speaker 1: in things, not in things like cheesecakes and and like
Speaker 1: the sweetest dessert you can ever have. Yeah, they were
Speaker 1: feeding that that stuff straight up to infants as the
Speaker 1: infant food. Yeah. Yeah. And about thirty years later, another one,
Speaker 1: John B. Marling, was that a man. It's possible. Uh.
Speaker 1: He developed an unsweetened condensed milk. UM called it evaporated milk,
Speaker 1: and this became a big thing to feed babies in
Speaker 1: the thirties and forties. All this stuff had a lot
Speaker 1: of fat Um, it would plump your baby up really well,
Speaker 1: but it was missing a lot of the things that
Speaker 1: babies need to thrive, like why does my baby have
Speaker 1: claws instead of fingernails and like dark circles under his eyes. Oh, nutrients,
Speaker 1: that's right, we need vitamins in this stuff. Yeah, which,
Speaker 1: uh in the nineteen twenties or so is when scientists
Speaker 1: started developing these uh formulas that didn't even have cow's
Speaker 1: milk at all, right, right, for kids that had milk allergies.
Speaker 1: They started using like soy flower. Yeah. And so when
Speaker 1: they figured out that, um, you could take this stuff
Speaker 1: and evaporate milk or evaporate soy protein and add this
Speaker 1: other stuff to it, like nutrients and vitamins, um, and
Speaker 1: balance it all out, formula really took off and it
Speaker 1: became a really almost a triumph of science in the
Speaker 1: popular culture. Right. So, starting in the thirties in America,
Speaker 1: if you wanted formula, you basically had to go to
Speaker 1: your doctor for it. You didn't necessarily need a prescription
Speaker 1: from what I saw, but the the rule was that
Speaker 1: if you were a formula manufacturer, you could only advertise
Speaker 1: directly to doctors. So it gave formula this kind of
Speaker 1: air of medicine like it was. It was medical and nature.
Speaker 1: It was like sterile and high quality, and that that
Speaker 1: had the stamp of science behind it, and it lionized
Speaker 1: the physicians who were now in between the mother and
Speaker 1: the baby's food, right, the doctor needed to recommend it,
Speaker 1: and so it was a It was a real way
Speaker 1: that UM science and medicine and parenting, especially early early
Speaker 1: childhood parenting came fused together. And so there was this
Speaker 1: idea that science had had conquered nature and created this
Speaker 1: perfect infant food. So by the nineties and fifties, this
Speaker 1: is when formula had really taken root, uh in the
Speaker 1: United States, and I guess around the world, but definitely
Speaker 1: in the United States, and it definitely caused a decline
Speaker 1: in breastfeeding for about thirty years. Yeah, I mean this
Speaker 1: is around the time the Late h A League started
Speaker 1: to organize in the fifties as a direct result of
Speaker 1: this decline in breastfeeding UM, and it continued on even
Speaker 1: into the seventies where the Our Bodies Ourselves people UM
Speaker 1: organized that second wave of lactivism, right, and formula is
Speaker 1: like flying high from the thirties the forties onto about
Speaker 1: the mid seventies, and you can actually point to one
Speaker 1: specific scandal that that basically led to a massive erosion
Speaker 1: of trust in formula, not just in the United States
Speaker 1: but around the world that's still around today. Actually, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Nesli Company in the mid nineteen seventies, they were
Speaker 1: sued because they were trying to really market formula to
Speaker 1: developing countries very aggressively. Yeah, they wanted to sell more formula,
Speaker 1: so they would do things like sin uh, saleswomen over
Speaker 1: dressed up in nurses uniforms who were not nurses, giving
Speaker 1: obviously the indication like, hey, this this is a great thing.
Speaker 1: You should you should use it. And formula was a
Speaker 1: great thing that they developed it, for sure, But what
Speaker 1: they didn't say in Africa to these mothers is that, hey,
Speaker 1: you need really good clean water here for this to
Speaker 1: be a viable source of nutrition for your kid. They
Speaker 1: didn't know that. Uh, they used at tainted water and
Speaker 1: infants started dying. Yeah, and it was laid squarely at
Speaker 1: the feet of nestly formula and ultimately formula in general. Um.
Speaker 1: And that was I think seventy four that that happened,
Speaker 1: and a few years later the World Health Ordization came
Speaker 1: up with these guidelines for for marketing formula around the world.
Speaker 1: It was such a huge scandal, and the US said, oh, wait,
Speaker 1: you know what, we just realized there's nobody overseeing our
Speaker 1: formula market they we should put the FDA on that.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't until nineteen eighty that the United States
Speaker 1: task the f d A with overseeing the quality impurity
Speaker 1: of formula. For then it was apparently just totally unregulated. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't believe nineteen eighty that's really really surprising. But
Speaker 1: the whole suspicion of formula and the whole idea that
Speaker 1: it's dangerous, sir, that it's problematic, it all stems from
Speaker 1: that event that um, that that scandal with Nessley in Africa. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So about eight years later, in the late eighties, the
Speaker 1: formula folks started, uh they could advertise directly to the
Speaker 1: public for the first time. I got on TV, got
Speaker 1: in print ads and said, hey, used to use our
Speaker 1: formula's good stuff, and and um, apparently the American Academy
Speaker 1: of Pediatric so still didn't like this kind of advertising
Speaker 1: and said you should still go to your doctor and
Speaker 1: talk about all this stuff, right, which is a conundrum
Speaker 1: it's like, well, wait a minute, are you guys saying
Speaker 1: that the the formula industry is being greedy and and
Speaker 1: reckless by going around you? Or are you just trying
Speaker 1: to preserve you know, your own bank accounts by reinsinuating
Speaker 1: yourselves into this this factor when you're not really necessary.
Speaker 1: It's like just one more thing you have to figure
Speaker 1: out when you're trying to raise a newborn infant. That
Speaker 1: just stinks, you know. All right, Well, speaking of stinks,
Speaker 1: I need to take a break and man, we'll come
Speaker 1: back in a minute and talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: milk banks and other cool things. Alright, chuckers, we're back, right,
Speaker 1: We're at the milk bank. Yeah, milk bank is Uh,
Speaker 1: it's pretty neat. I hadn't heard of it before. Um,
Speaker 1: had you? Oh I'm sure you have. I actually hadn't
Speaker 1: heard of any of this stuff. Oh really, Okay, Well
Speaker 1: let's talk milk banks then baby. All right, So let's say, um,
Speaker 1: breastfeeding is not an option for any of the reasons
Speaker 1: we've talked about. For mom um, you can go to
Speaker 1: a milk bank where milk has been donated breast milk obviously,
Speaker 1: uh from from women and uh you can pay a
Speaker 1: lot of money for banked milk that you know is
Speaker 1: very healthy, fully screened. Uh, just like going to a
Speaker 1: blood bank, basically, right, exactly. Um, you need a doctor's prescription. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it is expensive, like five bucks an ounce of money,
Speaker 1: it is, but it's good, high quality, disease free mother's milk. Right.
Speaker 1: And so I've seen that some insurance companies, some insurance
Speaker 1: plans will either pay all or some of that cost,
Speaker 1: so it can drop dramatically. But because it's so expensive
Speaker 1: and because not all insurance covers it. Um other um
Speaker 1: peripheral milk exchanges have grown up, some alarming, some slightly
Speaker 1: less alarming. But like there's one called only the Breast,
Speaker 1: which is a lot looks a lot like Craigslist for milk. Okay,
Speaker 1: have you been on it? No, Actually didn't go to
Speaker 1: the website. So every probably every third UM ad is
Speaker 1: like some sort of weird porno ad or something like that.
Speaker 1: But the other two are legitimate. You know, Like, I
Speaker 1: have milk, I'm healthy, and i just have too much,
Speaker 1: so I'm selling it for a dollar announce or something
Speaker 1: like that. UM, and I'm like I got the best
Speaker 1: stuff out there. Well, now I'm sure there are. I
Speaker 1: didn't run across any of that. But there's also uh
Speaker 1: like something that that you can also click that says
Speaker 1: like men need not contact me because apparently there's like
Speaker 1: a whole thing of weirdos out there who are like, hey,
Speaker 1: sell me your extra breast milk. You know, I was
Speaker 1: gonna make a joke a minute ago about milk banks
Speaker 1: being for you know, mother suit can't or won't breastfeed,
Speaker 1: or creepy weird wealthy guys. They go to only the
Speaker 1: breast apparently, So is it a thing for men to
Speaker 1: drink breast milk? I guess so, because you can go
Speaker 1: on only the breast, and most from what I saw,
Speaker 1: most of the legitimate ads were like, no, don't. I
Speaker 1: don't want any men to contact me, but there are
Speaker 1: That means that there are some out there where if
Speaker 1: you are a man, you could buy breast milk, which
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess if you have that fetish and
Speaker 1: it's not hurting anybody then right, But still I guess so,
Speaker 1: so so you've got only the breast, the problem is this, right,
Speaker 1: And I don't mean to pick on only the breast.
Speaker 1: There's other milk sharing sites like this. They definitely do
Speaker 1: serve a function where if you want to feed your
Speaker 1: baby mother's milk, um, and you just can't afford five
Speaker 1: dollars an ounce, but you can't afford one dollar announced
Speaker 1: and some some women on there have it for free.
Speaker 1: They're just donating it, they don't aren't charging anything for it.
Speaker 1: Um that's a viable place to go. The problem is this,
Speaker 1: the milk you're getting is not in any way screened.
Speaker 1: You have no idea whether the person you're getting it from,
Speaker 1: despite how great they look and how healthy they look,
Speaker 1: whether they're actually disease free, and hence whether their milk
Speaker 1: is disease free, which is that's very alarming. It is.
Speaker 1: There's also something called cross nursing, which seems like a
Speaker 1: reasonable alternative, and that's that's basically just when two women
Speaker 1: or four or five, just people who know each other
Speaker 1: like neighbors or good friends that are pregnant at the
Speaker 1: same time, uh, well, cross nurse and basically it's it's
Speaker 1: just milk sharing among a few people, straight from the tap,
Speaker 1: straight not straight from the tap. They'll they'll bottle it
Speaker 1: up and and go next door and say, you know,
Speaker 1: I had this leftover milk. I see, it's just it's
Speaker 1: basically milk sharing, but but not through like some big website.
Speaker 1: It's just among friends. I got to just keep it
Speaker 1: between friends. There's there is a website called milk Share
Speaker 1: that is it's along the lines of only the breast,
Speaker 1: but it's much more um uh regimented. Yeah. Um, it's
Speaker 1: all donated, it's all free um or there's no charge
Speaker 1: and um there are there's like guidelines for storing and
Speaker 1: shipping and stuff like that that only the breast didn't have.
Speaker 1: But again still, as far as I know, it's not
Speaker 1: screened for anything. Yeah, and we're not disparaging anyone who
Speaker 1: wants to use services like this at all. I just
Speaker 1: want to make that clear. It's just we want people
Speaker 1: to be as safe as possible. Yeah, I mean what's
Speaker 1: the alternative though? You know, like if you want to
Speaker 1: feed your child breast milk, you can't breastfeed and you
Speaker 1: just don't have the money, what do you do? You know,
Speaker 1: that's a sticky situation. It is. It's very sad. Uh.
Speaker 1: We talked a little bit about the breast pump yesterday,
Speaker 1: but um, we'll we'll really get into it here. It
Speaker 1: was advented in the early nineteenth Uh. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's early, but let's just say nineteenth century. It
Speaker 1: was about the time when formula was really starting to
Speaker 1: come into its own all right, Well that kind of
Speaker 1: makes sense in a way. Everyone's like vying for that
Speaker 1: space in the industry even back then. Uh. And the
Speaker 1: earliest models are probably what you think. It's basically a
Speaker 1: cow milking machine that's been modified slightly. Um, look like
Speaker 1: a vacuum and a hand pump. But it was and
Speaker 1: this is something I had no idea. UM as far
Speaker 1: as a consumer delivered at home product, it's only been
Speaker 1: around since about when uh Madela introduced the first at
Speaker 1: home electric po houred. Uh, you can you can have
Speaker 1: it in your as a consumer use breast pump. Yeah,
Speaker 1: right up to I had no idea it was that new,
Speaker 1: right Yeah and verse since then. There's just a really
Speaker 1: great Jillapoor article from the New York Or called Baby
Speaker 1: Food where she kind of chronicles the rise of the
Speaker 1: breast pump. But she points out that since nine um,
Speaker 1: sales of Medella's model alone had quadrupled and they become ubiquitous,
Speaker 1: you know. Um. Then they started out as a medical
Speaker 1: device like, if your baby couldn't um, couldn't nurse, you
Speaker 1: could still feed your baby breast milk by using these pumps.
Speaker 1: And it was a medical intervention that became a consumer product,
Speaker 1: And the reason it's spread and popularity like wildfire is
Speaker 1: because it makes uh, breastfeeding mom's life exponentially more awesome
Speaker 1: then if they're just nursing. Yeah, I mean that obviously
Speaker 1: has the advantages of freeing mom up by being able
Speaker 1: to bank that milk on her own. H. Then dad
Speaker 1: can help feed, and babysitter, daycare worker can help feed. Uh.
Speaker 1: Mom can sleep through the night, maybe even if you
Speaker 1: know dad is a good dad and a good husband.
Speaker 1: She can go to the store by herself. Uh, well,
Speaker 1: what do you mean. Well, I mean, rather than having
Speaker 1: to to feed every two hours or to express milk
Speaker 1: every two hours, she can go as far as I've
Speaker 1: seen up to like six hours between expressions, right, So
Speaker 1: you can fit a lot of time away by yourself
Speaker 1: in that six hours rather than too Yeah, I hear you.
Speaker 1: It's another big one. Uh. It also made things way
Speaker 1: easier in the workforce. Obviously, we we did touch on
Speaker 1: the yesterday with UM. As of two thousand and ten.
Speaker 1: Here in the United States, UM employers are required to
Speaker 1: provide these break times in a private place. But it's
Speaker 1: not like we had a lovely lactation room in our
Speaker 1: last office. We actually recorded it in there once. I
Speaker 1: think I actually was studying in there once, UM, and
Speaker 1: I was like elactation room. But it didn't occur to
Speaker 1: me like that was a lactation room at all times
Speaker 1: rather than just when uh, somebody was in there pumping. UM.
Speaker 1: So I was in there studying because it was very
Speaker 1: quiet and comfortable before I finally got cooked out and
Speaker 1: it dawned on me that, oh, that's the lactation room
Speaker 1: all the time. I should probably steer clear of that place. Here,
Speaker 1: and they're smoking a cigarette pretty much doing shots of whiskey. Uh.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned a second ago that UM the breast
Speaker 1: pump allowed women if their baby had troubled nursing. One
Speaker 1: of the issues that can happen. It's called nipple confusion.
Speaker 1: And it is UM, not confusion which is a little confusing. UM.
Speaker 1: It is not the baby doesn't know like whether or
Speaker 1: not it's mom's nipple or a bottle nipple. It's that
Speaker 1: the baby actually has a preference for the bottle nipple. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the baby has been introduced to the bottle in an
Speaker 1: now that the mom's like, okay, don't forget about the boob.
Speaker 1: The baby's like, no, no, no, I'm I'm pretty hip
Speaker 1: on the bottle instead. Let's just stick with that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it's it's a little easier, supposedly right for
Speaker 1: a baby to feed from a bottle, easier for the baby,
Speaker 1: that is right. It employs gravity more than the um
Speaker 1: the breast does, and the baby has to work less.
Speaker 1: And since babies are inherently lazy. Um, they're like, I
Speaker 1: like the bottle more. I just I don't understand why
Speaker 1: it was ever called nipple confusion, and I couldn't find
Speaker 1: the origin of it, although I bet you nipple preference
Speaker 1: just sounded mean, I guess. So. Yeah, like they were
Speaker 1: worried that the mom would take it as rejection. Uh,
Speaker 1: And so they say, experts do that if you want
Speaker 1: to try and avoid that potential at least that you
Speaker 1: want to at least try and breastfeed if that's what
Speaker 1: you're gonna do for two weeks before the baby sees
Speaker 1: any sort of bottled nipple. Yeah, right, you want him
Speaker 1: to get good at breastfeed thinks so they can remember
Speaker 1: how right it seems? Smart? Yeah, you're lazy, little dumb
Speaker 1: baby is smarter and not as lazy as you think.
Speaker 1: No or confused, that's right. So, um, if you are
Speaker 1: going with formula, there's a lot of different types available,
Speaker 1: as I'm sure you know more than me. Even um.
Speaker 1: From what I've found though, that almost all of the
Speaker 1: milk based ones, which is the standard version, all of
Speaker 1: the milk based versions are almost exactly the same. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there there are things that the FDA requires be present,
Speaker 1: so you're gonna see a lot of the same stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: should we go through the list here? I love this list, Yes,
Speaker 1: go ahead. Protein, fat, vitamin C, A, D, E, K
Speaker 1: B one, B two, B six and B twelve, niacin delicious,
Speaker 1: folic acid, love it, pantathemic acid, Calcium, How do you
Speaker 1: feel about phosphorus? It's a little sneaky. Magnesium, iron, zinc,
Speaker 1: here's the best one. Manganese It's like a mongoose and
Speaker 1: a mango mixed together. Copper, iodine, sodium, potassium, and chloride.
Speaker 1: Why do they always put potassium and chloride together? Have
Speaker 1: you ever noticed that? I don't know one thing that
Speaker 1: you may not find in your formula you probably won't
Speaker 1: is a fluoride supplement. And the guy who wrote the
Speaker 1: house Stuff Works article is just cuckoo for fluoride. Wants
Speaker 1: to make sure that your baby has fluoride coming out
Speaker 1: of his or her ears. Um, which you know, mambivalent
Speaker 1: on that. Well they do say um. I think the
Speaker 1: American Academy of Pediatric says no fluoride supplements at all
Speaker 1: two babies six months or younger. Oh is that right? Good?
Speaker 1: Good to add that because fluorosis is a concern in
Speaker 1: that case. That's not what this guy is saying, so
Speaker 1: you could catch He's clearly doesn't work for the American
Speaker 1: Academy Pediatrics. The thing about UM formula, though, is, like you,
Speaker 1: you would like to think it's all pure and wonderful
Speaker 1: and like the best ingredients, And there are some out there,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure they're mondo expensive right. Uh yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, the good organic formula is a little pricier,
Speaker 1: for sure. But there's also ones that are like they
Speaker 1: appear to be almost junk food for babies. Well yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean read the read those labels, uh, for sure,
Speaker 1: like corn syrup and artificial sweeteners and corn starch sweeteners.
Speaker 1: I mean, do what you want, but I would avoid
Speaker 1: that stuff sure, And I'm sure a lot of people
Speaker 1: aren't a percent aware that that stuff is in there.
Speaker 1: Um there their baby food. And I mean a lot
Speaker 1: of it's disguise like multidextrin sounds natural, but that's corn.
Speaker 1: That's corn starch sweetener. I don't think that sounds natural
Speaker 1: at all, But it sounds like it's It sounds like
Speaker 1: a quarterback for like a middling Midwest college or something
Speaker 1: like that, multi extron takes the field. It sounds like
Speaker 1: that hardy Mid America kind of thing. All right, it's
Speaker 1: not coastal at all. No, it's not coastal. Uh. If
Speaker 1: your little baby has intolerance to milk um, like a
Speaker 1: milk allergy, you can get those soy protein or coconut
Speaker 1: milk um formulas. Still they're still out there, but they
Speaker 1: now have the proper extra nutrients added, which they did
Speaker 1: not used to have, right, And you can also get
Speaker 1: did you say coconut too? Yeah? Yeah, I like the
Speaker 1: sound of that one. Coconut Sure, coconut anything's good. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I tried the formula ones. How is it? Is it sweet?
Speaker 1: At all, or are these sweeeners just strictly for carbohydrate sake.
Speaker 1: I don't remember how sweet it was. I don't think
Speaker 1: I got enough to really. Oh, I see this is
Speaker 1: after a couple of scotches. Let me see that right bottle?
Speaker 1: Not that bottle. The the speaking of sweeteners, though, if
Speaker 1: you want to get close to breast milk the sweetener,
Speaker 1: you want to look for the main sweetening ingredient in
Speaker 1: your formulas. Lactose. Okay, lactose, but then, like you said,
Speaker 1: you may find out that your kid is lactose intolerant,
Speaker 1: in which case you have some alternatives, especially soy and coconut,
Speaker 1: which is my favorite. So uh, formula, you're gonna have
Speaker 1: a few choices. You can have, um, like what they'll
Speaker 1: give you in the hospital. A lot of times is
Speaker 1: that just the bottles already pre packaged and pre made,
Speaker 1: which obviously it doesn't get any easier than that. You
Speaker 1: just pop the top and go at it, pre measured
Speaker 1: and everything, and those are okay, yeah, I mean those
Speaker 1: come in a variety of kinds as well, like from
Speaker 1: probably ones that um aren't as great, to the more expensive,
Speaker 1: better ones. UM, it's basically just the pre made version
Speaker 1: of the powder that you might buy right right then,
Speaker 1: the fact that they already measured out the precise amountain
Speaker 1: added the water and shook it all together. Already, that's
Speaker 1: what you're paying for the convenience, I guess. In other words, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know it's their disposable, so you're you're I mean,
Speaker 1: you're recycling the bottles hopefully, but it's still something that
Speaker 1: you it's it's a one use thing. Okay. So then
Speaker 1: you've got your concentrates and your powders, and um, price
Speaker 1: and convenience are kind of what play in here according
Speaker 1: to what you're gonna go with in addition to what
Speaker 1: little b b will will want to eat. You know,
Speaker 1: some babies are like, I don't I don't like that.
Speaker 1: I reject your formula. Give me another one, or this
Speaker 1: one makes me have reflux or makes me super gassy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That was the thing that I saw too, that that
Speaker 1: even the formulas are virtually all the same. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: your baby might have a strong preference for one over another.
Speaker 1: I think such a triumph. Yeah, I think that the
Speaker 1: thing the recipes are tweaked because there can I mean,
Speaker 1: some of them say like, uh, for gas, problems specifically
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. So there must be some either
Speaker 1: a little less of something or maybe a little more
Speaker 1: of something would be my guess. And I'm just I'm
Speaker 1: flying off the cuff here, So if I got that wrong,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. One of the other things that UM formula
Speaker 1: requires is really good water, yes, UM, which again the
Speaker 1: author of the House to Folks article, who apparently is
Speaker 1: unaware of fluorosis UM says just use tap water. You
Speaker 1: can totally use cold tap water. And he does say
Speaker 1: you never want to use hot tap water when you're
Speaker 1: creating formula because if you do have UM lead plumbing
Speaker 1: anywhere connecting to your house, hot water will leach it out. More.
Speaker 1: When we covered that big time, our one about Flint, Michigan,
Speaker 1: remember that, UM, So you want to use cold tap water,
Speaker 1: I would say use filtered waters the first formula. Sure,
Speaker 1: but if you if you're just using it out of
Speaker 1: the tap, and in the rule of thumb is if
Speaker 1: you can drink the tap water safely, uh, your baby
Speaker 1: should be able to as well. But UM, just be
Speaker 1: sure to use cold water. Yeah. And in fact, I
Speaker 1: think for the first a little while we were even
Speaker 1: using spring water just to be like those first few
Speaker 1: weeks or you know, until you get a little more
Speaker 1: comfortable or a little bit like all right, like I'm
Speaker 1: doing everything right. Yeah, no, I don't blame me, man,
Speaker 1: And then you get a little more relaxed you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, babies are pretty hardy little monsters, you know.
Speaker 1: And apparently also like I was surprised that they'll they'll
Speaker 1: take formula cold, but um, apparently they'll take a cold
Speaker 1: right out of the fridge. Well, it depends, well, it
Speaker 1: depends on the baby. Well, yeah, like, um, some babies
Speaker 1: like no, no, no, no, heat that heat that stuff up? Right. Well,
Speaker 1: when you're heating it up, you only want to run
Speaker 1: it under hot tap water, in which case it's fine
Speaker 1: because you're not actually adding the hot tap war you're
Speaker 1: just using it to run out on the outside of
Speaker 1: the bottle, right to heat it up. Yeah, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: advise against that. Okay, how do you heat it up? Then?
Speaker 1: Because I saw I don't use a microive, Well, there's
Speaker 1: you can buy a bottle warmer, which is basically like
Speaker 1: a just a little round thing with that you have
Speaker 1: water in the bottom that boils it like a tea kettle.
Speaker 1: It's like a water bath. Yeah, it's a little water bath.
Speaker 1: But the reason I suggest that is if it takes
Speaker 1: a long time to to warm it up under tap water,
Speaker 1: and so you're literally like just running water for like
Speaker 1: five minutes, well that's a that's a good that's kind
Speaker 1: of wasteful. You're right, And at first I was likely
Speaker 1: bottle warmer. They try to sell you all this junk.
Speaker 1: Literally was like that, and you know, I tried it.
Speaker 1: I was like, look, you can just put in a
Speaker 1: coffee cup and put some hot water in there, but
Speaker 1: that cools off like really quick, and the bottle warmer
Speaker 1: was like fifteen dollar urs that You're like, well, look
Speaker 1: you can just put the coffee cup on the stove,
Speaker 1: turn the stove off, turn it on. Yeah. Emily was
Speaker 1: basically like, get the bottle warmer done and it's infinitely easier.
Speaker 1: You just just click it on. It's got a little
Speaker 1: time or for a couple of minutes or whatever, and
Speaker 1: it heats it up and you're not wasting as much water.
Speaker 1: That's that's cool, But in a pinch, like when you're
Speaker 1: out and about, you definitely like the running it undertap
Speaker 1: water works. I think there's two things then that the
Speaker 1: federal government should give every new parent at least a
Speaker 1: year's supply of infant formula, good stuff, and a bottle warm,
Speaker 1: like just for just for being an American, you should
Speaker 1: get that. Yeah. What what country is it sweet where
Speaker 1: they give him the box? Norway? Is it Norway? I
Speaker 1: don't know. I think I think it's one of those
Speaker 1: I'm sure. Oh, I know what you're talking about. The
Speaker 1: box can be used as like a baby like a
Speaker 1: crib even yeah. Oh, I think it is a Nordic
Speaker 1: country and it's like this old tradition that they still do.
Speaker 1: And uh. I think I posted something about it and
Speaker 1: I was like, what in the world, and all these
Speaker 1: women are like, no, dude, it's the best, like they're
Speaker 1: doing it right. Yeah, but I can't remember. It was
Speaker 1: some sort of baby box. Yeah, yeah, I know what
Speaker 1: you're talking about. And I think it came with stuff
Speaker 1: in it, but then you take the stuff out of
Speaker 1: it and then you put your baby in it. Right,
Speaker 1: I have to look into that. I think I'm describing
Speaker 1: it correctly. And the baby's like echo. Uh So when
Speaker 1: you get your bottles and your nipples, when you decide
Speaker 1: on the ones, they're a bunch of them out there.
Speaker 1: But when you decide on the one that works, that
Speaker 1: you like and that works for baby, um, you you
Speaker 1: want to sterilize it right out of the package by
Speaker 1: boiling it. But then after that you can just wash
Speaker 1: it in the dishwasher with hot water, supposedly unless your
Speaker 1: house operates on well water, in which case you may
Speaker 1: want to be a little more um steril ific you uh.
Speaker 1: And in two thousand twelve they banned b p A
Speaker 1: uh for baby bottles because b p A has been
Speaker 1: shown to leach from its uh plastic containers the products
Speaker 1: when heated up. And so since twelve, anything you buy
Speaker 1: won't will be b p A free. But if people,
Speaker 1: I mean, that wasn't that long ago. So people are like, here,
Speaker 1: take my old bottles or you know, have my handy downs.
Speaker 1: You gotta look, um, look on the bottom and if
Speaker 1: you see a number seven on the bottom or PC, yeah,
Speaker 1: then it might have b p A. So you should
Speaker 1: just try and get a new one. Yeah. And you
Speaker 1: don't be also lulled into complacency by things that say
Speaker 1: b p A free, because they may be certified even
Speaker 1: b p A free. But two replacements that have come
Speaker 1: to stand in for b p A. BPS and BPF
Speaker 1: are apparently just as bad endocrine endocrine disruptors as b
Speaker 1: p A. So what you really want to do is
Speaker 1: just avoid any clear plastic bottles. You want to use
Speaker 1: the opaque kind because they're usually made of polyethylene or polypropylene,
Speaker 1: and you want to go with ones that have the
Speaker 1: recycling symbol with the number two or the number five
Speaker 1: in them. Those are legitimately free of bp A or
Speaker 1: or bisphenols of any kind. Yeah, they should put a
Speaker 1: little baby with the thumbs up. They they they should
Speaker 1: just yes, they shouldn't have taken this many years for
Speaker 1: I'm just the whole bp A thing really gets me going, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I totally agree. I mean it's only four years ago.
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, wait a minute, it's leaching when you
Speaker 1: heat it up into your baby's food. Yeah, well well wait,
Speaker 1: we're making money off of it. Sorry to see. That's
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. You can get glass bottles now. Back
Speaker 1: in the day, that was all you would see obviously. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they still make great glass bottles, and they're a
Speaker 1: bit heavier um to hold they so you can break
Speaker 1: if you drop them. But you've seen a lot of
Speaker 1: places like the hazards of dropping and breaking a bottle.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not that big of a hazard. It's
Speaker 1: like it's like any I mean, if you unless you
Speaker 1: don't have any glass in your house at all, you
Speaker 1: could always drop a glass. Sure. Also, I know these
Speaker 1: things aren't the most fragile things you've rent countered, sick
Speaker 1: and heavy, So they just cracked the baby's face if
Speaker 1: you drop I guess that's a bigger hazard than it breaking. Right.
Speaker 1: Uh no, I mean all right, you should be holding
Speaker 1: that bottle, you know, which we're gonna get into, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you want to take a break first. Hey, so Chuck,
Speaker 1: I saw something. Um I think I said you don't
Speaker 1: want a microwave baby bottles? Did you know that? I didn't?
Speaker 1: But um, we we we don't really use a microwave
Speaker 1: at all, so not an issue. Well, the reason why
Speaker 1: you don't want to is because microwaves heat basically from
Speaker 1: the inside out. So when you grab the bottle and
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, it's lukewarm. The stuff that you're touching
Speaker 1: on the outside is lukewarm, but the stuff inside might
Speaker 1: be really hot, and you don't want to hurt baby.
Speaker 1: I guess we should also say anytime you give baby
Speaker 1: formula unless it's directly out of the fridge, and even then,
Speaker 1: why not, Um, you want to shake a little on
Speaker 1: the underside of your forearm, right because it's a very
Speaker 1: sensitive area in your skin and you'll be able to
Speaker 1: tell whether it's hot or not. I would drop it
Speaker 1: in my eye. That's a good one. It's very sensitive.
Speaker 1: I'll bet that spring water doesn't hurt at all. All right, So, um,
Speaker 1: like you said, some babies don't mind it cold, or
Speaker 1: after a while they've may be like, all right, cold
Speaker 1: is fine with me. But you're still gonna want to, uh,
Speaker 1: you still want to hold and feed your baby, You don't.
Speaker 1: You don't like set your baby down on a couch
Speaker 1: and hand your baby a bottle and walk away, because
Speaker 1: a for a while, that's not even possible. Um, although
Speaker 1: I will say, once the baby can hold the bottle,
Speaker 1: it's pretty neat. Yeah, but you know you still want
Speaker 1: to be there. But you're you know, you want to
Speaker 1: still be there and provide eye contact and that closeness. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a big part of it. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a huge part of it. Also. I mean, we talked
Speaker 1: about it in the breast episode. Um, skin on skin
Speaker 1: contact has a lot to do with social development in
Speaker 1: brain development with babies due to oxytocin release. But that
Speaker 1: doesn't just come from breastfeeding. So anytime you're feeding a baby,
Speaker 1: you basically should be shirtless from what I'm gathering. Um,
Speaker 1: So that and you way you hold a baby, whether
Speaker 1: you're bottle feeding it, whether you're best feeding it, whether
Speaker 1: you're the neighbor or the maleman who's been invited to
Speaker 1: come beat and meet the baby and feed it, you
Speaker 1: want to take your shirt off first so that the
Speaker 1: baby's got some form of skin to skin contact while
Speaker 1: she's she's eating. I never did that. Well, I it's
Speaker 1: I don't think it's ever too late. Yeah. Now I
Speaker 1: would be like, what are you doing? Um, it's a
Speaker 1: new thing we're trying. So, Uh, you don't want to
Speaker 1: have your baby laying down flat. Um. You want your
Speaker 1: baby the head elevated a little bit or you know,
Speaker 1: flat out sitting up. If they have reflux problems, you
Speaker 1: may have to experiment a little bit with that angle. Um.
Speaker 1: But uh, the one thing you definitely don't want to
Speaker 1: do is just prop the bottle because that has four
Speaker 1: specific problems that can happen, uh ear infections, perhaps because
Speaker 1: the formula just floats right into the middle ear. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: feeding longer then uh they might normally um and then
Speaker 1: decreased emotional and physical satisfaction from getting held right and
Speaker 1: apparently also increases the potential for cavities too. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: I mean this is like we're talking about you shouldn't
Speaker 1: put your baby down into like even if your baby
Speaker 1: can hold the bottle, you shouldn't lay your baby down
Speaker 1: in a crib like a bedtime and say here's your
Speaker 1: bottle to put you to sleep and then leave the
Speaker 1: room because and that and this is a little bit
Speaker 1: different than just bottle propping. But there are a lot
Speaker 1: of uh dangers there. One tooth decay of course, because
Speaker 1: the last thing that should happen is toothbrushing, uh, ear infections, choking,
Speaker 1: and then just this sleep association. Um, you don't want
Speaker 1: your baby to be dependent on having that bottle to
Speaker 1: fall asleep, right, You're not doing yourself any favors there,
Speaker 1: and sleep training, good point. So that's in the crib,
Speaker 1: leaving the baby with the bottle slightly different the bottle
Speaker 1: and sure, um, when you are feeding an actual infant
Speaker 1: um and you have to hold them up basically and
Speaker 1: feed them with the bottle. Um. One of the one
Speaker 1: of the things I think you said was that you
Speaker 1: you have a lot of um opportunity for eye contact. Right,
Speaker 1: it's one of the benefits of holding the baby water feeding.
Speaker 1: But you also want to be sure to hold the
Speaker 1: baby with your left arm one time and then the
Speaker 1: next time hold the baby through right arm and just
Speaker 1: keep going back and forth, because apparently their eyes can
Speaker 1: develop um uh. One one can develop more strongly than
Speaker 1: the other. If it's if the baby is fed facing
Speaker 1: the same way all the time, baby, you'll look up.
Speaker 1: It's it's funny, it's intuitive. But I could totally see
Speaker 1: not even thinking about that, never thought about it. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: You want to keep that um nipple full of milk
Speaker 1: at all times, which means keeping it uh point down,
Speaker 1: because you want to decrease the amount of air, because
Speaker 1: that will make your baby gassy. The more air that
Speaker 1: baby drinks are swallows while eating the gassier. Uh. He's
Speaker 1: gonna be right. And when you are feeding your baby,
Speaker 1: apparently it's good to to burp him midway between the feeding.
Speaker 1: Definitely after each feeding yeah, midway for a while and
Speaker 1: then eventually um just after and burping is they're there
Speaker 1: are different ways from over the shoulder, like the sort
Speaker 1: of classic over the shoulder. You want to go high though,
Speaker 1: and make sure there's some pressure on the abdomen um too,
Speaker 1: putting just sitting a baby on your lap sideways and
Speaker 1: holding her under the chin, uh and then padding the
Speaker 1: back or just across the lap again with the pressure
Speaker 1: on the abdomen and you know you want to. People
Speaker 1: are a little timid, I think at first because little
Speaker 1: tiny babies seem so fragile, but they're not as f
Speaker 1: toil as you think, and just tiny little soft pats
Speaker 1: is doing literally nothing to get that burp out. So
Speaker 1: if you've ever had a nurse do it for you
Speaker 1: and show you, or your mom or someone who's had
Speaker 1: a few kids, you might be like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: my baby, you're beating my baby. But that's what you
Speaker 1: want to do. I mean, obviously you don't want to,
Speaker 1: you don't don't want to like strike them, but a
Speaker 1: good firm pat is what it takes to get that
Speaker 1: burp out. Like, don't be shy and uh in my case, uh,
Speaker 1: my daughter never really burped much from burping. I would
Speaker 1: try and try and then be like, all right, I
Speaker 1: guess she's good. And then she would like sit up
Speaker 1: and go on her own, and you know, and then
Speaker 1: she's kind of smiling sort of and um, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean whatever you can do to get that little
Speaker 1: burp out, and burp doesn't always come out, so if
Speaker 1: you try it for a few minutes it doesn't happen,
Speaker 1: then you know they might be good. Yeah, which I'll
Speaker 1: be is not not into it all that. Some babies
Speaker 1: have just been pounded on for days because the parents
Speaker 1: yea burp so chuck. Um you were saying before that, Um.
Speaker 1: One of the great things about bottle feeding is that
Speaker 1: it allows other people to share in some of the
Speaker 1: feeding as well. Right, Um, it's not as mom who's
Speaker 1: responsible for feeding the baby, dads can too and other people,
Speaker 1: like I said, the male carrier whoever. Um. But the
Speaker 1: the idea that it's not just um sharing responsibility but
Speaker 1: also like an opportunity to get to like get closer
Speaker 1: to your kid as a dads has got to be
Speaker 1: pretty appealing as far as the concept of bottle feeding goes, right,
Speaker 1: you know, like it's when you're breastfeeding. Apparently there's a
Speaker 1: U there is a phenomenon among some some men where
Speaker 1: they actually become jealous of either their wife or their baby.
Speaker 1: You're both because of the bond that's being formed in
Speaker 1: the amount of attention and time that's being given to
Speaker 1: the baby through breastfeeding. Yeah, I've heard of that. You
Speaker 1: have heard of it. I hadn't heard of it until
Speaker 1: I ran into this. Yeah, I've heard of it. I
Speaker 1: mean i'd say, just getting their dad and you can
Speaker 1: still be a part of things. Yeah, yeah, you totally
Speaker 1: your breastfeeding. Well, I'll just go in the other room then,
Speaker 1: you know, like sit down with them. Yeah yeah, I say,
Speaker 1: can your act together? Ye? Getting jealous of your baby
Speaker 1: because it's being breastfed. Uh. As far as when, um,
Speaker 1: there are a couple of methods of feedings, UM, demand
Speaker 1: feeding versus scheduled Uh. I only have my own experience,
Speaker 1: which was my daughter just fell into her own routine basically,
Speaker 1: and it worked out to be a scheduled routine. UM
Speaker 1: that was pretty pretty tight, like you know, down to
Speaker 1: the you know, ten or fifteen minutes apart on a
Speaker 1: daily basis when it was clear it So it ended
Speaker 1: up being scheduled, but she sort of set the schedule.
Speaker 1: That means it's pretty cool, you know. Um, but you know,
Speaker 1: there are two different schools of thought. You can try
Speaker 1: and stick to that schedule, um, but you may be
Speaker 1: you know, pushing that that rock up the hill constantly,
Speaker 1: in which case you might want to think about demand feeding,
Speaker 1: which is I feed my baby when my baby says
Speaker 1: they're hungry. Yeah, and I was, I was researching this
Speaker 1: and I was like, well, it seems like setting the
Speaker 1: schedules the smartest thing to do. And then I thought, oh, well,
Speaker 1: the baby kind of lets you know when here she's hungry,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't necessarily stick to the schedule. So I'm
Speaker 1: sure the idea of sending the schedules goes right out
Speaker 1: the window and the baby's like screaming, you know. So yeah.
Speaker 1: The problem with demand feeding, though, is that, um, your
Speaker 1: baby might come to say, oh, this is this is enough,
Speaker 1: This will be enough for this hour. I'll see you
Speaker 1: in another hour and do that like fifteen times a day. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One thing I do recommend, and uh is to track it.
Speaker 1: Uh we we just got it like a viral notebook
Speaker 1: and track to the times and the amounts because even
Speaker 1: though you think like no, no, no, I'm keeping up
Speaker 1: with it. It's it's really easy to forget how much
Speaker 1: they've had that day, and you don't want to over
Speaker 1: feed them or underfeed there. So just yeah, we just
Speaker 1: kept a little daily log made it super easy. Did
Speaker 1: you get the spiral notebook? Warmer too? Did? Actually it
Speaker 1: was very nice. Nice, it's good. At first I was like,
Speaker 1: who needs it? But then every time I put it
Speaker 1: on my lap it was all cold, and so, oh,
Speaker 1: this is nice. Yeah, that's very nice. So so as
Speaker 1: a dad being able to feed your your kid, I mean,
Speaker 1: like that that has to be pretty special, right, it's
Speaker 1: the best. Yeah, And that is one of the huge
Speaker 1: benefits of bottle feeding that that the dad gets to
Speaker 1: do that too. Um. And just kind of from the research,
Speaker 1: I got the impression that a lot of dad's kind
Speaker 1: of take this hands off thing where it's like, that's
Speaker 1: your thing, you feed the baby, I'll I'll go make
Speaker 1: some money outdoors or something like that, right, And and
Speaker 1: the the idea of the dad being involved in the feeding,
Speaker 1: Like that's part of the thing about bottle feeding the
Speaker 1: kids that the dad can be involved, and so the
Speaker 1: dad should be involved probably in more ways than he
Speaker 1: even imagines in a lot of cases too. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: not just actually feeding the baby, but actually knowing how
Speaker 1: much formula is needed to prepare and that kind of stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just like, be involved is the best advice. And that's
Speaker 1: kind of what this article says that you sourced here. Like,
Speaker 1: you know, don't be a chromagnant or a dad from
Speaker 1: like the nineteen thirties. You know, just be involved. Like
Speaker 1: if if, uh, your wife is breastfeeding or bottle feeding
Speaker 1: and she wants to do it, and she likes a
Speaker 1: nice quiet scene and she doesn't want the dogs barking
Speaker 1: and stuff like set up the bedroom and light a candle,
Speaker 1: take the dogs on a walk, but on some music
Speaker 1: like run interference. If the phone rings, you know, go
Speaker 1: get the phone. Just like, be involved, right, and if
Speaker 1: you're if your wife or if the mom does choose
Speaker 1: to breastfeed, if that is where you guys go with it.
Speaker 1: There's also other stuff you can do too that that
Speaker 1: isn't just feeding. Like you in the middle of the night,
Speaker 1: you can go get the baby, bring baby two moms,
Speaker 1: or take baby back to bed, hang out with baby
Speaker 1: for a little while while you're burping him or her UM.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of stuff you can do, including apparently
Speaker 1: unwavering support with whatever choice the mom makes as far
Speaker 1: as or you and the mom, I should say make
Speaker 1: um as far as feeding the baby goes, especially apparently
Speaker 1: when it comes to breastfeeding, because again, um, I guess
Speaker 1: studies have shown that the dad's support, encouragement, and involvement
Speaker 1: in the choice to breastfeed UM has a huge impact
Speaker 1: on how long breastfeeding continues. To imagine, but I I
Speaker 1: would guess the same thing goes for formula. To Like,
Speaker 1: if you're a mom who decided it that you just
Speaker 1: want to feed your baby formula, you're gonna catch a
Speaker 1: lot of statics. So if you're the dad, you should
Speaker 1: be able to run interference for her as well to
Speaker 1: um with friends, family, all that chance. Yeah, go fight somebody. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's funny. All this stuff seems just intuitive to me
Speaker 1: and guys like you who you know, it's not like
Speaker 1: husband wife chores. It's like we just all support each other.
Speaker 1: But I have like friends that you know, like, oh
Speaker 1: I didn't wake up you know when my wife would did?
Speaker 1: What could I do? And I'm like, what year is it?
Speaker 1: I don't have boobs, like, dude, play play a part,
Speaker 1: Get up, get out of bed, right, I mean maybe
Speaker 1: not every time, like maybe you can work out the
Speaker 1: schedule and stuff, or maybe your wife is like, no,
Speaker 1: you totally sleep through the night tonight, but you know,
Speaker 1: offer sure, And you know, I bet your wife might say, yeah,
Speaker 1: that'd be great. Go get the baby, bring it to me. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I thought you'd never ask take her back burper. Yeah.
Speaker 1: This this kind of stuff reminds me of that that
Speaker 1: parenting class that margin Homer Simpson had to go to
Speaker 1: you once, and the instructors like, remember you place your
Speaker 1: milk in the refrigerator or barring that in a cool
Speaker 1: wet sack, you know, and Homer was just writing it
Speaker 1: all down. Get involved, guys, get your head out of
Speaker 1: your key stir. This is what I say. What else
Speaker 1: you got? I got nothing else? Oh? This article from
Speaker 1: House to Work says don't feed your baby junker, junk
Speaker 1: food or alcohol. Dad's yeah we forgot about that part.
Speaker 1: I'm sure I know that that was huge in the seventies,
Speaker 1: like here's have a little beer, baby, dip that pacifier
Speaker 1: and whiskey. Yeah you know they used to Yeah, they
Speaker 1: used to do stuff like that. There was like this, Um,
Speaker 1: what's the I guess it was colic? Is that that's
Speaker 1: the one where the baby's just crying NonStop? Right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Colic is uh supposed to be I'm not supposed to be.
Speaker 1: It's terrible. There was a colic remedy um that it
Speaker 1: was basically consistent of like these needles and like you
Speaker 1: just kind of scraped the baby's skin with it, and
Speaker 1: the active ingredient was morphine that trickled down the needles
Speaker 1: and entered the baby's blood stream and that's what cured
Speaker 1: the colic. Wow. Yeah, they used to do all sorts
Speaker 1: of crazy stuff up to again about the seventies. Actually,
Speaker 1: I do have one more thing. I would just offer
Speaker 1: a general advice to hang in there if you're a
Speaker 1: new parent. Um, Emily and I got super super lucky
Speaker 1: with great sleep habits and great eating habits and just
Speaker 1: all this intuitive stuff that we had nothing to do with. Um,
Speaker 1: you can try your best to do everything you can,
Speaker 1: and you may feel helpless because that little, that little
Speaker 1: uh model of sunshine is ruling your household and you
Speaker 1: you might be trying your darnists for sleep or for
Speaker 1: eating and this and that and nothing is working. And um,
Speaker 1: you know it's not your fault like hanging there, because
Speaker 1: it will change. And that goes for good stuff. Just
Speaker 1: when you think everything's going great, something will change and
Speaker 1: then you'll take two steps back, just you know, hanging there.
Speaker 1: It'll all work itself out. So the government should give
Speaker 1: every new parent a good formula, a bottle warmer, and
Speaker 1: one of those hanging yeah, and one of those hanging
Speaker 1: their kiddie posters inspirational posts. If you want to know
Speaker 1: more about breastfeeding well, brothers and sisters, there is plenty
Speaker 1: more to it. Um. You can just start researching online,
Speaker 1: talk to a doctor you trust, electation consultant, uh, friend
Speaker 1: who's breastfed, a friend who's used formula. Put it all together.
Speaker 1: Form your own opinion. Uh. And in the meantime, since
Speaker 1: I said form your own opinion, it's time for a listener.
Speaker 1: May all. I'm gonna call this a a suggestion. We
Speaker 1: don't usually read suggestions, but this I've never heard of this, dude,
Speaker 1: so I'm reading it. Um. John Evans, a young man
Speaker 1: from North Wales the very late eighteenth century, agreed to
Speaker 1: explore the American interior with his friend, uh. Yolo morgen Wig.
Speaker 1: I think they specifically said it's not yolo. I think
Speaker 1: you're right. It's like they said that. Oh was like,
Speaker 1: you're right, people say yolo, but Welsh people don't care
Speaker 1: for that. Sorry about that. So they didn't say how
Speaker 1: to pronounce it though, they like, just figure it out yourself, chumps.
Speaker 1: That says you say that, Oh like the first one
Speaker 1: octopus and the h l or I as a yeah,
Speaker 1: so iyoway, I'll I'll try and be brief. He tried
Speaker 1: to discover a Welsh speaking tribe in Middle America linked
Speaker 1: to the Mandan tribes. We're talking like Patagoni here, not Ohio.
Speaker 1: He went to London, sale to Boston. Uh, well, maybe
Speaker 1: it's talking about Ohio. Uh. Then just walked and walked
Speaker 1: the land. Worked for the Spanish mapping out the land,
Speaker 1: which quickly become his auxiliary task, one that he was
Speaker 1: very good at. Lewis and Clark actually uses maps for
Speaker 1: the majority of their own famous expedition. Uh. Yeah. He
Speaker 1: was sort of a diplomat, securing passage up the Mississippi
Speaker 1: from the native tribes who then controlled it. Then headed
Speaker 1: to New Orleans before realizing no such tribes existed. Um.
Speaker 1: Apparently he's like, well it was, it was worth a try.
Speaker 1: Apparently the guy from Super Furry Animals Um Griff rise
Speaker 1: Rees Griff Reese. By the way, did you ever like them?
Speaker 1: Did you? Oh? Yeah, yeah, I was into them for
Speaker 1: a while. Like they opened um for Granddaddy one time,
Speaker 1: and you won't find a bigger Granddaddy fan than me.
Speaker 1: But they like it was one of the few times
Speaker 1: where the opening act blew the mains act off the
Speaker 1: stage from Oh yeah that that dude is a genius
Speaker 1: musically intellectually he's awesome. Yeah, I agree, and I like
Speaker 1: them um as a band, but like I was not
Speaker 1: expecting that out of the live show. Yeah, like it
Speaker 1: blew my mind. Are they still around? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I know they had an album
Speaker 1: like in the last several years, last few years. I
Speaker 1: need to get back into that anyway, and not to
Speaker 1: not Grand Daddy. Of course they were still great. Uh.
Speaker 1: He from Super Furry Animals made a book, a film,
Speaker 1: an app and an album about the story and retraced
Speaker 1: his journey in person. What I believe he is actually
Speaker 1: distantly related. Oh that's cool. We gotta check that out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure. So he said this will make a great podcast. Dudes,
Speaker 1: do yourselves a favorite a least and look up the
Speaker 1: book American Interior and the same title as the album
Speaker 1: and give it a read. So that is from David
Speaker 1: Evans and I'm totally going to look that up. It's
Speaker 1: a call again American Interior. And then the guy's name
Speaker 1: was John Evans, nice the explorer. Well, thanks a lot
Speaker 1: who wrote them? Who wrote in now David Evans and
Speaker 1: alive lots of Evans going on. Thanks a lot, David.
Speaker 1: We appreciate that forgiving us that heads up. Will definitely
Speaker 1: check it out. If you want to get in touch
Speaker 1: with us like David did, you can tweet to us
Speaker 1: at s Y s K podcast or Josh um Clark.
Speaker 1: You can hang out with Chuck on Facebook at Chuck
Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryant at Facebook dot com. Uh, you
Speaker 1: can hang out with us at Facebook dot com, slash
Speaker 1: stuff you Should Know too. You can send us an
Speaker 1: email stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com and
Speaker 1: has always joined us at our home on the web,
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com