Positive Health Online

It is true that infants survive despite a great deal of unintended abuse. It is not true that this survival is without penalty.



Our precious children are ours for a short span to nurture and prepare for life as adults. Love is the greatest gift they can receive from us, and one aspect of that love is right feeding from the start. This aspect really starts even before conception by preparing the best internal environment in the prospective parents. Removal of amalgam fillings (mercury), detoxification of toxic substances and establishing a good nutrient profile (water, unrefined salt, essential fatty acids, vitamins and minerals) are all relevant preparations. The importance of a right attitude towards pregnancy, birth and childrearing, including the right motives for having children in the first place is also a relevant preparation. A peaceful situation is ideal for infant nutrition.

Of course, all of these are ideals and learning usually comes after the children do. All parents have made some mistakes and would like to put back the clock, but that is not possible for any of us. This is not condemnation but simply exploring ideals to aim at and, hopefully, help others to avoid painful experiences which could have been avoided by prior knowledge. Most of us have not been taught how to eat healthily or how to raise children - we have merely accepted the norms of the culture and country into which we were born and/or raised.

Regardless of various accepted norms, young babies the world over are meant to have only one food - their mothers' milk.

A baby would get a far more natural start in life if the mother had no pre-conceived ideas about how her infant should be fed. Mothers' instincts, which are much more reliable than even mothers can imagine (if unpolluted by the doctrines of various 'experts' and any negative social dictates), would guide them to only feed babies foods which they (the babies) can handle. It is clear that toothless babies can only suck.

Feeding a new born baby formula, sugar water (dextrose) or fluids 'until the milk comes through' is detrimental to the baby because colostrum (the rich fluid formed first before the full milk supply), is tailor made for clearing out mechonium (baby's intestinal contents at birth), preventing jaundice, enhancing immune capacity and priming the intestines for a life of food via the digestive tract. This process should not be interfered with because it is what the baby requires for health and proper function.

Baby teeth appear very gradually, and as the teeth come through, so do the enzymes which are able to digest food, which is appropriate to tooth status. A mother without the pressures of negative social dictates would gradually wean a baby according to its needs, with full weaning taking place when the baby has its full set of infant teeth (2 - 3 years of age). The critically important principle is that a baby deals with its own food. In other words, if foods cannot be chewed satisfactorily by the baby with its own teeth, then it is not a suitable food. If there are no teeth present to physically chew food then the appropriate digestive enzymes will not be present to deal with the food item either. The unfortunate state of feeding babies food which they cannot chew or digest is a potential contribution to allergies and histamine reactions to normal food substances which would ordinarily be accepted, if given at a later stage in life, instead of prematurely.

Some common culprit categories lie at the heart of digestive distress in infants:

• Toxic breast milk (mostly mercury from amalgam fillings);
• Deficient breast milk (mother dehydrated and lacking in unrefined salt, vitamins, minerals and fatty acids);
• Cows' milk (some authorities include soy milk);
• Foreign proteins (eggs, meat, fish, nuts);
• Wheat and potato (given prematurely);
• Toxic processed fats ;
• The interference of digestion by vaccinations and antibiotics, amongst other things, is covered elsewhere and will not be discussed here. (However, emphasis is put on the importance of this aspect along with more relevant reading and research.)

Some of the above categories such as wheat, potato, eggs, meat, fish and nuts are not necessarily detrimental in themselves, but when they are given prematurely to babies without the enzymes and/or teeth to deal with them, they become problematic. This can be avoided by introducing them at appropriate times. If such items were not liquidized in order to artificially feed them to babies, it would be glaringly obvious that a baby cannot handle a plate of steak and chips or chicken pizza!

Human babies' natural food is raw, whole breast milk, not animal or vegetable formula. Where this is not possible, for whatever reason, and as a child gets older and is weaned, goats' and sheep's milks are compatible for infant feeding.[1] The fact that they are too young to have anything other than mother's milk should speak for itself, but we have to face the reality that women do bow to some negative social conditioning and can lack confidence in areas where women were meant to be authorities. Natural raw whole goats'/sheep's milk with a little added natural sweetener and essential fatty acids is generally the best substitute. For determining relevant amounts, a knowledgeable practitioner should be consulted and when dealing with raw milk which, like breast milk contains all the enzymes and co-factors necessary for its digestion, animal source hygiene is essential, so the source of supply should be known and verified. The amounts will vary with the baby's age. Pasteurised milk is dead milk.

Infants require only breast milk for about the first eight to nine months of life (presuming that the mother is adequately nourished). The state of the mother's breast milk is vitally important; she should be free of mercury and heavy metals (from amalgam fillings, aluminium cooking pots etc.), and not taking cows' milk, toxic fats, tap water toxins such as fluoride and chlorine etc. in her own diet.

Examples of homeopathic remedies for detoxification of heavy metals,
adverse radiation and tap water toxins.

Her fatty acid profile should be adequate and a breast feeding mother should be on high-grade nutrition. Another vital factor is water intake. Dehydration is detrimental for mother and baby. A non breast-feeding adult needs a about 6 - 8 pints distilled/filter/bottled water daily along with sufficient unrefined sea salt (not industrial grade sodium chloride). Add to this basic amount any further requirements of stress, hot weather, exercise etc.

At this juncture, it is appropriate to mention that many mothers presume that their baby needs solids because they cry and suck and forever want feeding. A very common mistake a mother makes is overfeeding right from birth. This causes tummy ache; a baby sucks to relieve the pain but because he/she sucks on the breast, the problem is compounded by further overfeeding. Vomiting and regurgitation (a sure sign of an overfed baby),[2] diarrhoea and sore bottom are all signs of overfeeding in such a baby. They can also indicate other things such as toxic milk, nutritionally deficient milk or dehydration, so counsel is best taken from a knowledgeable practitioner.

A colicky baby is usually suffering from amalgam toxicity from breast milk, along with cows' milk sensitivity (second-hand from the mother taking cows' milk). Many a colicky baby has been sorted when amalgam fillings have been removed from the mother's mouth and the mother taken off cows' milk, toxic fats and tap water. Amalgam removal must be done correctly and carefully using detoxification procedures and correct dental procedures and replaced with fluoride-free, low toxic replacements.

When toxins in breast milk cause discomfort and trigger the sucking reflex in order to gain comfort, further feeding not only overfeeds but also adds another dose of toxins which causes further distress compounding the situation. There are many parents who have paced up and down, infant in arms, in utter anguish at not being able to pacify their crying baby. I had a very sweet letter from one four-month old breast-fed baby (I guess she dictated it to her mother!) who said that she felt her real self for the first time ever after her mother had her amalgams removed (all quickly and properly) and stopped taking cows' milk and cows' milk products and drank more pure water and unrefined sea salt. Her tummy ache and constant crying stopped and that made mother and baby very happy indeed.

Mothers seem incredibly reluctant to feed a new baby for only about three to five minutes either side. A baby's stomach is very small and cannot tolerate overfeeding. A properly fed baby will need an average of between three to four hours between feeds to allow digestion. A cry 'for a feed' after half an hour and for up to three hours is usually a cry of overfeeding tummy ache. The overfeeding cycle can be broken with a dummy (or clean finger) and lots of cuddles and walking round. Putting a baby face down over your hand/arm can be soothing. Also, in overfeeding (and in feeding wrong/toxic milk), the baby's ileo-caecal valve[3] often malfunctions, causing aggravated tummy ache; this can be corrected using acupressure points and/or very gentle massage techniques.

Importantly, however, the above comments do not endorse a regimented feeding regime. A baby will naturally vary in feeding times, just as adults do, and there will be the genuinely early cry for food, and the feed which is not wanted for at least an hour later than normal, simply because metabolism is not a rigid, fixed event according to the baby's growth pattern. A perceptive mother will know the difference between the 'types' of cry.

References
1. www.vitacare.co.uk
2. This should be presumed where any other potential condition is first ruled out where there is concern about baby having problems.
3. The ileo-cecal valve is a 'one-way' valve between the large and small intestine preventing the back flow of large intestine contents into the small intestine. When this malfunctions there is potential for a state of auto-toxicity and secondary hiatus hernia both causing multiple symptoms which mimic other random disease states such as appendicitis, chest pain, digestive disturbances, headaches, aches and pains, visual disturbances and a general feeling of being unwell.

Continued in Part Two