"Wonderfully Made" and "Colostrum --The Gold Standard" Revisited

Psalm 139:13 - 16 -- "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.  My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.  When I was woven

together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.  All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."

This passage came to mind, yet again, when I was attending a webinar yesterday.  The topic centered on the importance of colostrum in the first two weeks of life, and how formula disrupts a crucial process.

There are components in amniotic fluid which serve specific roles in the development of the unborn baby.  Some directly affect the growth of the gastrointestinal tract.  With advances in technology, we are learning more about how the environment of the G.I. tract impacts our immune systems.  (Manufacturers of probiotics are thrilled -- cha ching!)

But there is a system that exists which is so detailed and wonderful I could barely follow all the scientific jargon that accompanied the explanations yesterday.  I said, "barely".  My old A&P course served me well enough to grasp, once again, how amazingly intricate is God's design in the process of creating and developing those babies created in His image:  human beings.

Amniotic fluid starts the process of developing healthy villi  Villi are little finger like projections in the gut which are responsible for absorbing nutrients while not allowing bad bacteria, digesting food, etc. to enter into the circulatory system.  Colostrum continues the process of proper development.    If this process is interrupted or altered by the introduction of foreign substances, like formula, the negative effects are life long.  The person is then more susceptible to intestinal diseases, auto immune diseases, and a variety of disorders which can show up from time to time all along the life span.

Colostrum is more similar to amniotic fluid in preparing the newborn's G.I. tract to accept mature breast milk, and later other foods.  If a woman desires to formula feed, things will go much better if she breastfeeds exclusively for the critical first two weeks (as defined by the speaker, Dr. Paula Meier, Director for Clinical Research and Lactation in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and a Professor of Women, Children and Family Nursing and a Professor of Pediatrics at Rush University Medical Center).

This is one reason why the Joint Commission -- an organization which accredits hospitals which maintain certain safety and health standards -- has recently made exclusive breastfeeding during the hospital stay one of it's core measures.  More and more hospitals will now be developing ways to inform expectant women of the risks of formula feeding.  They also will be working harder to minimize unnecessary supplementation.  

Or, and I hope this does not occur, they will be sending normal babies, with minor feeding problems, to the NICU so they are removed from the tracking list -- making the hospital statistics look better than they really are.  This could even lead to more breastfeeding failure overall.

Another fact which was mentioned in the webinar yesterday was that during the first 24 hours of life, newborns ingested only about 15 ccs (3 teaspoons or 1 tablespoon) of colostrum.  This amount is spread over about 10 to 12 feedings during a 24 hours period.   If you do the math, that is about 1.5 ccs (1/3 or so of a teaspoon) per feeding.  Drops!

Healthy term babies have fat stores which provide energy until the tiny stomach begins to expand and mother's milk supply begins to increase.   This system helps protect the baby's brain from undernourishment and brain damage during a time of decreased intake.  Colostrum goes to work, in increasing quantities and with ongoing changes in composition to continue setting up developmental and protective systems within the baby.  The G.I. track is somewhat of a central point for this critical stage of development.

Not only does the introduction of formula interfere with the work of epithelial cell growth factors (which help the villi become "thicker", longer, stronger, and more capable of performing their intended function), the OVERFEEDING of formula releases in chemicals which disrupts the normal process.  Overfeeding of formula is standard.  Most newborns, when supplemented, are given an ounce of formula per feeding.  This is twice the normal amount of intake the healthy newborn ingests on the first day of life, according to Meier.

So, if a newborn only takes in 1 tablespoon in the first 24 hours, with gradually increasing amounts over the new few days, why do they want to nurse so much?  Because it is their "job"!  A colleague, Dr. Stephen Buescher says, "They LIKE it!". 

God gives babies a strong desire to suckle.  They can even crawl up to the breast and latch themselves if they are not too medicated and are given the opportunity.  

Babies quickly calm and reorganize when they are skin to skin with mom (or dad).  Their heart and breathing rates slow to normal more quickly.  Their blood sugars stabilize sooner than when they are in a bassinet.  They LIKE snuggling and nursing.

Research is showing us that the amount of sucking, and the various types of suckling the baby does actually causes changes in the mother's breast.  These changes, in part, are responsible to a variety of things. One important one is the timing of mature milk production.  It also releases certain factors, good bacteria, etc. into her milk to help baby set up a proper G.I. tract environment.

The baby is NOT using mom as a pacifier; the baby it trying to keep a proven system on track. Mom's body keeps baby warm and at the right temperature.  Being skin to skin with mom helps baby's breathing, heart rate, blood sugars, and so on to become stabilized.  Mom's body releases oxytocin, which facilitates milk let down.  Man's "wisdom", yet again, can interfere with this process.  Over the past several decades, time at the breast and contact with mom's body has been limited.  Pacifiers and supplements are given.  Babies and mothers have been, and in some cases, still are, unnecessarily separated.  And the thought that a newborn can be "spoiled" is ridiculous.   

While I was sitting there, soaking up this information, or at least letting it splash on me and hoping all of it would not run off my back like some lactation duck, I could not help but worship our "beyond super intelligent" God.  Yet, I still had to listen to how evolution occurred over vast amounts of time to develop a system which protects human so well.  The obvious question to me was "If it took so long to develop this intricate system, how did early humans survive long enough to procreate?"  This was then followed by "How can individual cells have the intelligence and and the ability to improve their own poor processes?  It would take a well-working cell to do so, and it were working well, why would it change?"

No, friends, it takes an amazing, omnipotent, omniscient, and very loving God to create a being as "wonderfully made" as man.  Even though we are in a state of falleness and living in a world under the curse of sin, God has provided ways to nourish and protect His little ones.  Of course nothing is guaranteed to work perfectly, and it won't until the Earth has been renewed by the little baby, and one day King of Kings,  born in Bethlehem, nourished by the milk He Himself designed.  Until that time, He has provided the best way to help ensure the healthful development of His tiniest creatures -- amniotic fluid, colostrum, and mature breast milk, all delivered in and on a woman's body.  And that, too, has been "wonderfully made".

Enjoy this Christmas season.  And, if you are new mother, like M.C. whom I visited recently, enjoy this special time with your new baby.  And Dad, keep up the good work encouraging and helping her.