This area of the website is split in various different sections, and so that you don't have to read it all but can focus on the section which applies to you, at the top of every page in this area we list the sections so you can jump directly to where you want to go.

Pre-Baby: Undecided?

Pre-Baby: I'm going to breastfeed

Pre-Baby: I can't breastfeed - which formula should I choose?

Baby Is Here: Need help with breastfeeding

Baby Is Here: Need help with formula



Section One: Things to Think About Before Baby Comes

OK, so you're expecting a baby and you're just starting to think about what you will feed to it when the time comes. Probably you have some preconceptions about infant feeding in particular, and how babies are looked after in general; possibly from your own childhood or more recently from friends or relatives with children - perhaps from seeing characters in TV shows, or even from celebrities , as we tend to see more of THEIR private 'stuff' these days than we do the people we live next-door to!

Maybe your thoughts have been shaped by wanting to be just like someone else and do as they have done - or perhaps they're formed in exactly the opposite way, so that you're thinking that if so-and-so did that then there's NO WAY you'll do the same.

Of course a lot of what you might do, as a parent, is shaped by what you think is 'normal', and what information you have or think you need to have, to make a decison on what to do, with. Perhaps you are a bit undecided and are visiting this website looking for more information to help you make up your mind which milk to choose for your baby?

This being 2008 and all pregnant women in the UK receiving free care from the NHS via GPs, Midwives and hospital staff, you will doubtless have heard the phrase 'breast is best' - but perhaps you don't know what that really MEANS. There's an article linked to up to the right of this page which explains that actually, the phrase 'breast is best' is a bit misleading: actually when you think about it the normal thing for human babies is to have human milk, and anything else is at best second best or artificial. In fact the WHO (World Health Organisation) says that first choice for baby is milk from its mum, then second choice is Mum's milk, expressed and drunk fresh, 3rd choice would be Mum's milk expressed, frozen and then thawed before consumption, then somebody else's milk (which in the UK would mean pasturised and frozen then thawed milk from donor mothers via a milkbank) THEN, finally, if none of those things is available - infant formula.

There are of course a lot of benefits to breastfeeding, for both mother and child - some of the medical benefits are listed in an article up in the list to the right of this article - but actually, are they benefits of breastfeeding, or are the reverse - do they demonstrate some of the downsides of artificial feeding of babies with infant formula?

What you need to know, if you want to make an informed choice, is what are the potential pitfalls of each method of feeding - for there are only three choices (breast only, formula only, or a combination of the two). This website isn't here to judge or to lecture you, or tell you what you should do - only you can make the choice, and it should be the choice that suits YOU and YOUR BABY the best, but it should be an informed choice - make sure you know the pros and cons of everything, never accept someone's opinion or anecdote as a true picture of a situation, and always do your research. Hopefully this website will make that last part much easier!