Guess what, they've come up with another crackpot idea to push baby formula.

Professor Mike Cawthorne of the University of Buckingham in England has hit the headlines by coming up with the idea of an "Anti-obesity" formula. He thinks that if you put leptin in formula, you'll stop the child being fat for life.

Quite apart from the fact that supplemental leptin has only ever worked on rats, and never on humans, he's ignoring the fact that Nature has already provided an anti-obesity baby milk, called breast milk! And it's free.

I didn't know that there was a study proving formula caused obesity later in life instead of say.........lack of exercise!

utterly ridiculoous

There is plenty of research linking it to obesity and even type 2 diabetes. Baby gets refined sugar instead of natural lactose in a milk their body is meant to break down = Baby at higher risk of obesity and diabetes, along with a ton of other things.

breastmilk = Nature's perfect food for babies, and hey, it's free!

But maybe this new formula is good news for those mothers who are unable to breastfeed. I've known a few who tried really hard but had to switch to formula for various reasons. Their babies shouldn't have to suffer because of this.

Breast feeding is an issue I'm really grappling with right now. My husband and I are planning to conceive sometime this fall (but plans don't always go the way you want them to). I physically cannot breast feed because I had a breast reduction a few years ago. Some women can still breast feed after breast reduction, but I cannot. Any suggestions?

Breastfeeding after reduction depends on how it was done, if the breast tissue was cut through the milk ducts, or cut away in sections, leaving some ducts intact. If you don't tell them you are planning to breastfeed, they usually do the quick cut method.

It might be worth going back to your surgeon and asking if any milk ducts were left intact. If you have some, you can at least do partial breastfeeding.

If not, then you'll bottle feed. It's not the ideal, but it's getting better all the time.

My only suggestion is that regardless of your feeding method, you try to parent like a nursing mother, with lots of skin to skin contact, baby carrying, demand feeding etc.

Good luck.

have you tried reading through Kellymom.com? They have articles on every breastfeeding obstacle on the planet, it's a great resource.

I agree with the pp, if you can't nurse, at least parent like you were, meaning hold your baby during feeding, the bottle prop routine is bad for the baby in so many ways. And carry your baby around in a sling, try to mimic the constant closeness to mother nursing provides. Also, pick the baby up when he or she cries. Babies need and want to be close to their mom. The old wives' tale about spoiling a baby with too much attention just isn't true. Babies who are held a lot (this is where that sling comes in handy) cry less, have less colic etc. So many parents hear a cry and shove a bottle into the baby's mouth because "nothing else calms them down" when sometimes just holding the baby and talking to her would have worked just fine. That's where you see obese babies, which is really sad. I can't imagine how difficult it would be to overcome obesity that started when you were 4 months old!

Also, follow the guidelines about how much formula to give the baby, don't feed more, and please don't feed less because of a fear of the baby becoming over weight. When you introduce solid foods, make them yourself using your food processor instead of buying pre-prepared baby foods that often have sugar or other additives in them.

Finally, don't fall for that old myth about rice cereal helping them feel more satisfied. Adding rice cereal or anything else to their formula is just adding more calories, often times more refined, processed calories.