Breast milk vs. formula milk, is it possible for formula milk to replace breast milk?

Going back to work after maternity leave is a choice most mothers have to make. Although going back to work can bring more income, the baby at home becomes the mother's biggest concern.

Especially the problem of baby nutrition. Since many workplaces do not have nurseries and it is impossible to look after the baby and breastfeed at any time during work, the result is that they can only use milk powder.

Of course, no matter what, formula milk is not as good as breast milk, and the World Health Organization also recommends breastfeeding. Therefore, as a mother, although you can no longer let your baby continue to eat breast milk after the maternity leave, when choosing formula milk, you still hope that the formula milk is as close to breast milk as possible. Today, the editor will take you to understand the specific differences between formula milk and breast milk and whether there will be a formula milk that can replace breast milk in the future?

First of all, it is difficult to make formula close to breast milk.

According to Professor Wang Xingguo’s book Human Milk Fat and Human Milk Fat Substitutes [1], most current formula milk is not very close to breast milk. For example, the highest breast milk fat content is only 53%.

The total amount of solids in breast milk is about 12% of the total amount of milk, and the rest is water, so the main difference between cow's milk and breast milk lies in these solids.

Among these solids, lipids account for about 30% by weight and are the main component of breast milk.

Milk fat is not a single component, but is divided into many types of fat. For example, the table above shows the composition of human milk fat, including approximately 98% triglycerides, 1% phospholipids, 0.5% cholesterol and cholesterol esters, as well as other fat accompaniments.

These ingredients themselves play an important role in the baby's nutrition, growth and development, immunity, etc., and are indispensable components of breast milk.

Secondly, is there any difference in the milk fat between formula and breast milk?

The answer is yes.

Formula milk powder is a staple food for infants and young children, and it is necessary to add enough fat to meet the needs of infants and young children. However, the composition and structure of these fats are still quite different from breast milk.

In the early days, the fat added to milk powder was mainly from plant sources.

As people's understanding of breast milk fat increases, they find that the structure of breast milk fat is different from that of plant fat, especially in the structure of triglycerides, the main component of breast milk fat. This is because fatty acids have a highly specific position distribution on the triglyceride backbone, which are sn-1, sn-2 and sn-3. A typical triglyceride in breast milk is 1,3-dioleoyl-2-palmitoyl triglyceride, abbreviated as OPO, with oleic acid (O) at the sn-1 and sn-3 positions and palmitic acid (P) at the sn-2 position.

The lipid structures are quite different.

So later, as technology improved, people began to produce OPO structured fat milk powder and add it to milk powder. I believe that many mothers have noticed that many high-end milk powders have begun to feature OPO structured fat.

Although the addition of OPO structured fat makes milk powder fat closer to breast milk fat, there are still some differences. The reason is that industrially produced milk fat does not fully take into account the differences in lipid structure.

Another very important issue is that breast milk itself is not consistent. In fact, breast milk itself is affected by genetics, diet and other factors.

Finally, milk powder localization

In fact, at present, we are conducting more and more in-depth research on milk powder, and we are paying more and more attention to the significance of milk powder localization. We need to develop infant formula milk powder fat that meets the nutritional needs of Chinese babies based on the nutritional composition of Chinese breast milk.

Here we have to mention the research of Professor Wang Xingguo, who has been deeply engaged in the field of dairy fat for many years.

Professor Wang Xingguo is a pioneer in this field. He is one of the scientists who has published the most papers on breast milk fat in the world. He has presided over the national "863" project, and his achievements have won the National Technological Invention Award and the National Science and Technology Progress Award. In 2018, he won the highest award in China's engineering community - the Guanghua Engineering Technology Award. He enjoys a special allowance from the State Council and was selected as a national candidate for the national "New Century Hundred Thousand" talent project.

In his book "Human Milk Fat and Human Milk Fat Substitutes", he proposed the concept of "full-price human milk fat substitute". The purpose is to develop fat for infant formula that is similar to breast milk fat in structure and composition. This can make the milk powder closer to breast milk to a greater extent and make mothers more at ease.

Of course, improvements to the milk fat in infant formula are still ongoing. After all, the composition of breast milk is quite complex, so further research is needed. However, in the future, full-price replacement for breast milk is an inevitable trend, which will also allow mothers to feel more at ease about their baby's diet.

[1] Wang Xingguo, Human Milk Fat and Human Milk Fat Substitutes