Breastfeeding is the natural way of feeding infants and young children. WHO recommends, as a public health measure, exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months and continued breastfeeding up to 2 years and beyond (1). Yet a large proportion of infants worldwide is formula fed (2,3). Of these, the largest majority is fed with powdered infant formula (PIF). In Italy in 1998, an estimated 15% of newborns...

The ubiquitous and opportunistic pathogen Cronobacter sakazakii is responsible for severe meningitis, sepsis, and necrotizing enterocolitis in neonates and infants associated with ingestion of contaminated powdered infant formula (PIF). The current ISO method for isolation and detection of Cronobacter spp. is laborious, time-consuming and expensive. In this study, a multiplexed lateral flow tes...

Mothers' own milk is the best source of nutrition for nearly all infants. Beyond somatic growth, breast milk as a biologic fluid has a variety of other benefits, including modulation of postnatal intestinal function, immune ontogeny, and brain development. Although breastfeeding is highly recommended, breastfeeding may not always be possible, suitable or solely adequate. Infant formula is an in...

Breast feeding is known to protect an infant against gastrointestinal pathogens and epidemiological studies indicate that compared to breast fed infants, formula fed infants are at a greater risk of dying from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Many SIDS infants have symptoms of gastrointestinal infections prior to death and one gastrointestinal pathogen associated with SIDS is Clostridium pe...

The gastrointestinal (GI) microbiota differs between breast-fed and classic infant formula-fed infants. Breast milk is rich in prebiotic oligosaccharides (OS) and may also contain some probiotics, but scientific societies do not recommend the addition of prebiotic OS or probiotics to standard infant formula. Nevertheless, many infant formula companies often add one or the other or both. Differe...

Milk is an important food; it supplies our body with the essential mineral’s requirements. In this study, some major (Calcium, magnesium, phosphorus) and minor (copper, iron, zinc) minerals were determined in seventy-eight random processed milk samples. These samples collected from different markets Benghazi city, Libya during 2017. The order of elements concentrations all was calcium> phosp...

The bifidogenic effect of an infant formula supplemented with inulin and fructooligosaccharides (4.0 g/l) was examined clinically and in vitro, and compared that of mature breast milk. In a 28-day clinical study, fecal samples of 21 infants, divided into two groups: one receiving the infant formula and the other breast milk, were microbiologically and biochemically examined. In the in vitro inv...

On 10 September 2008, ProMED issued a request for information concerning 14 cases of kidney stones in infants hospitalised in Gansu province, China, in the previous two months [1]. On 21 September, Chinese authorities reported 39,965 cases of kidney stones in infants, including three deaths related to the consumption of melamine-contaminated powdered infant formula. On that day, 12,892 of them ...

There are recommendations to guide parents to help their infants make the transition from milk to weaning foods, but they differ in their focus in developed or developing countries and on the physiological and behavioral reasons that underlie the introduction of weaning foods. According to recommendations, ideally, term infants should begin weaning at six months, while breastfeeding should cont...