When was infant formula invented

Wet nursing is when a woman breastfeeds another woman's child. Initially these bottles were made of glass. Shortly after, the first rubber nipple was patented.

In evaporated milk was developed. The use of evaporated milk allowed food to be transported and stored without spoiling. It was a huge breakthrough for food sterilization and allowed several baby formula brands to emerge.

Various new Formula brands emerged before the Infant Formula Act passed in This set minimum and maximum standards for many nutrients in formulas and mandated testing and manufacturing standards. Some of them make lots of sense, while others point to a time when people were much less fortunate than we are. Let me take you through a few …. Wet nursing was undertaken as early as BC and continued right through to the 20th century and perhaps beyond, as some news stories and YouTube videos can attest!

This was a widely used alternative to breastfeeding because women sadly often died in childbirth or could not breastfeed due to health reasons. In some parts of society, breastfeeding was not the done thing. This meant wet nursing was very common in well-to-do families who often used servants or — sadly — slaves to breastfeed their babies.

Again, babies would drink animal milk from the hollow horn. Sometimes carved wooden vessels were crafted and used to feed babies even more of that milk from the local beasts. Others were fed cereal cooked in bone broth.

The spout was covered with rags, linen or sponges to form a makeshift teat. By the 18th century, people began to realise that human milk was best for babies — hooray — so they set about formulating something that would have similar properties. In a gent named Gale Borden added sugar to the newly invented evaporated milk another popular feeding choice for babies , canned it and marketed it as condensed milk.

This soon became a popular breastmilk alternative for babies. This becomes the basis for formula nutrition science and stays that way for many decades. The Sears catalogue from shows eight different brands of commercial infant foods.

Even though formula is now widely available, sales remain modest. Cow's milk contains more casein than human milk, so it must be diluted. However, when casein is diluted, it decreases the sugar and fat content to less than human milk contains. So, to correct this, cream and sugar are added in precise amounts. By the s though, doctors grow frustrated by the complexity of putting Rotch's percentage method pretty difficult for moms at home, too into practice. They go back to recommending commercial formulas or simple homemade formulas containing evaporated milk.

A new infant formula becomes available, and this one replaces milk fat with a fat blend made from animal and vegetal fats. Simulated milk adapted SMA is the first formula to include cod liver oil.

The Mead Johnson company introduce Sobee—the first soy-based formula—to consumers. A few years later, they also market Pablum, which is the first precooked fortified infant cereal made with ingredients like wheat, oats, corn, bone meal, alfalfa, and dried brewer's yeast. Commercial formulas become the standard for infant nutrition. The Infant Formula Act of is passed after multiple cases of hypochloremic metabolic alkalosis in infants from consuming select soy formulas are reported.

Hypochloremia is caused by prolonged vomiting involving a loss of chloride in excess of sodium, accompanied by a compensatory increase in plasma bicarbonate.

Metabolic alkalosis is an acid-base disorder in which the pH of the blood is elevated beyond the normal range of 7. This was a serious condition that caused a metabolic imbalance in the babies from prolonged vomiting. Following the Infant Formula Act of and backed by nutritional research, formula options continue to more closely try to resemble breast milk.

A few examples, courtesy of Contemporary Pediatrics :.