Transcript:
Hey, everybody. I hope you had a wonderful New Year. Welcome back to the Milk Minute. I’ve always liked New Years. I never stay up till midnight anymore, but I love the idea of new beginnings. You know, I feel like I’ve just been so, like, mentally hungover at every New Year’s for so long, I don’t know if I like it anymore.
I don’t know. I mean, I’ve always really enjoyed Starting over a new calendar. I’m a really big stationary person and I love a clean slate and I know it’s not really a clean slate. No. I know this in my mind, but you know, I don’t know. You know, I, I get hung up on this actually every new year. This like thought occurs to me again that actually our calendar is really stupid and we should have 13 months, not 12 and they should be equal amount of days and It would make more sense.
Wait, why should we have 13? Then every single month would have the same amount of days and they’d all be four weeks. Oh, damn. Anyway, pretty much every time I buy a new calendar, I think about why it’s stupid. That is weird, actually. It’s like the lunar calendar versus this random calendar that we use that’s like I don’t know, a mix of a bunch of different things?
Who knows? I don’t know, something about, something about Caesar or Yeah, some fucking old dudes, I don’t know. Some, some Roman guy figured it out and he was wrong. Now we’re stuck with it. Here we are. Yeah, I don’t know. And also, I, I’m looking forward to this. Season in particular like I never have before because we have decided as a family to stop vacationing in the summer and instead to vacation in the dead of winter because that is when we are the most Slow because my husband and I both own our own businesses This makes sense, Heather.
I’m glad you made a logical choice. Yeah, I mean, we’re so tired of trying to, like, pack for a whole beach vacation in the summer when he’s his busiest as a mortgage broker, and I, so many babies are born in the summer. So, like, February is our time, so we are gonna go on vacation. February is our time to this year.
I have so, I have the most clients I’ve ever had at once on call right now. Really? Yeah. And I’m like, kind of like, kind of like not sleeping stressed out about it, you know, like that level of stress, but I have zero people do in February. Now, inevitably, like someone in January is probably going to go a little late.
Someone in March will go a little early, but I do have like the middle. Two weeks where I’m like actually not on call. Like this is a unique thing basically for solo practicing midwives that like, I don’t like not a lot of other professions have this problem. There’s nobody else to be on call. So it’s just me.
And if I’m not there, there’s no one to catch these babies. So I, I try really hard to build some off call time because I think I would just go insane if I didn’t have any. I think you’re really good at that. You’re actually better than most midwives at that. Every midwife listening to this podcast right now is like, yes, we are not good at work life balance at all or prioritizing ourselves.
Yeah, it’s kind of, this career draws martyrs. It does. And I’m thankful that even when I do go back on for my March due dates, like, my schedule is lighter, significantly so, than it’s been from November to January. November, December, and January, I don’t know, just fucking babies all over the place. Yeah, that’s weird.
And good luck with driving in the winter off of your mountain for the remainder of these months. I, I’m really good about getting new tires, and I actually always keep tire chains with me, which are a huge pain in the ass to put on but let me tell you what. If I have to drive before someone has plowed, That’s what I’m using, especially if I have to go, like, over, like, you know, Spruce Knob or, like, over Cheat Mountain or something.
Those are, like, literally the worst roads on the East Coast. I have no idea how to put chains on tires, but I believe that it’s a pain. It’s a huge pain in the ass. I used to do, we used to have to do it all the time for our truck to get up to our old house. It’s a little bit easier in a car, thankfully, and they’re getting easier to do.
But I’m just like, look, if I can’t make it, an ambulance isn’t coming either. So I’m sure as hell gonna put some chains on and get out there and do my best. Oh my god. Reason number one million, not to live in the woods. Okay, anyway. We wanted to gift you this episode again on rice cereal because this is one of those topics that just never stops coming up.
Yes, and you know, I wanted to rerun this one, like, specifically at this time because everybody who’s coming home from visiting family for the holidays with like a four or five month old is now doubting their solid feeding plan. After like. Every older person in the family has been like, Why don’t you just give him some gravy?
Why don’t you give him some real food? How, how is that baby still on only liquids? And you’re like, well, this baby is super chunky and only on liquids, so. Yeah, and, and you know, I’m sure somebody told you about a knockout bottle and somebody else, you caught them actually feeding mashed potatoes to your four month old and.
Yeah, or letting them lick an ice cream spoon or something. So anyway, we’re gonna play this one again. I think it’s relevant and it’s good to remind yourself. I know a lot of you, like, had really great plans to wait till six months. So, you know, remind yourself about solid feeding plans, the foods you want to feed them, just with this little episode we have, so.
Yeah, hope you enjoy it and I hope you feel Nice and refreshed in this new year. I hope you did get some sleep and may you enjoy a blank sleep, even if it’s only metaphorical. Yes. Enjoy. Bye. Welcome back to the Milk Minute Podcast, friends. Hey, everybody. We’re here today and we, well, I have a special topic for you, Heather.
Tell me. It’s a surprise for me today. It is. So, we’d been talking about doing this episode for a long time and every time we talked about it, we were like, heh. No, we don’t want to do it. That’s so much. It’s a can of worms. It’s a lot of stuff. Anyway, yesterday, when I was looking at the topics we planned, This one randomly sounds good and I did it.
So we’re talking about rice cereal today. Ohhhhhhhhh, snap. Granny’s beep popping off everywhere if you’re coming after their life cereal. That’s what I had for breakfast. I meant rice cereal. They really are though because every article that I read about this, like, there were like 20 comments from boomers being like, I fed it to all my kids!
Hahaha! Anyway, well. What I found out when I was looking into this is there is a lot more information than I could include in an hour ish, and I also realized after making my outline that the questions you have about it might not be the questions I had about it, so I might have to say I don’t know a bunch.
That’s okay. I mean, it’s better than nothing. Yeah, so this might be a good primer, and we might have to revisit it after you ask me all the questions. I don’t know. Okay. Sounds good. I mean, you know me. I’ll always try to poke holes in the research you work so hard on. I feel like sometimes, Heather, you ask a question that When you say it, it was just so blaringly obvious, and then I can’t believe I didn’t look for the answer.
And I’m just like, shit, like. I just appreciate you taking the lead on this one, I really do. Yeah, I actually weirdly had fun with it. Anyway but before we get into rice cereal for infants let’s do a little quick to some of our wonderful patrons. Yes, and patrons, just new update, 5 a month tier patrons and up get early and ad free episodes on the platform.
Yes. So if you want more of us. And you want us early. And you don’t want to hear us try to sell things, because I feel like we’re kind of bad at it. Yeah, I don’t know. I think, you know, I actually kind of like commercials. I think they’re funny, but a lot of people hate them and find them distracting. So if you do, you can Five bucks a month.
Yeah, you can give us five bucks a month, which goes straight to our production, and audio, and transcription. Yeah, and you get early access, so, like, when all your friends are listening on a Friday, you can be like, I heard that on Monday. Yeah, that’s right, bitches. And then also friendly reminder that we do both do lactation consults and the links are in the show notes of every episode.
Yes. Okay. So big, big thank you to Julie Anne from upstate New York, Keely Seal, Becky from Philadelphia and Laura Haven as some of our new patrons. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. So we have a question from one of our patrons that I want to start out with today, and she’s a local from Morgantown this is from Brittany Jarrett.
About a month ago, I stopped breastfeeding after almost two years. I can tell changes are happening in my breast tissue is returning to a more normal, quote, state. With that, I’ve had odd sensations in my breast and lots of discomfort. I would relate to occasional lightning bolts all over. No signs or symptoms of mastitis.
I’m assuming it’s related to cellular changes happening, but I was wondering if you all or any of your clients had experienced this. Is it normal? Am I going crazy? Thanks again for the podcast. It’s truly so enjoyable. Okay. Funny story. I went down a Google rabbit hole about this a few months ago after seeing.
A video on Facebook or something where someone like, it was like, oh yeah, something men don’t know is just your boobs randomly hurt. And I was like, what? Dude, that’s never happened to me. And then like thousands of comments were like, oh yeah, the random lightning bolts. And I was like, what? It’s happened to me for sure.
Yeah. But like, I’m used to that. being reported vasospasms for lactating people, but I was like, I don’t think I’ve really experienced that without lactating. Turns out it is one of the most widely reported breast complaints. Just for people with boobs. For people who are chest feeding, for people who are weaned, for people who have never lactated at all.
Part of this maybe is attributed to hormonal fluctuation, especially from your menstrual cycle, right? Part of it is attributed to vasospasms part of it is attributed to incorrect bra fit breast cysts, fibrocystic breasts, fibroadenomas, blah blah blah. Everywhere I looked, there were like 20 possible benign causes and no real way to figure that out.
And I was like, cool, so I guess one more thing that we just don’t actually have research on. I just assume that my boobs randomly hurt because I have implants. Also possible. You know, like it’s just taking up too much space in there and pushing on stuff and like nerve stretching. I mean, the lightning bolt pain is most likely nerve pain, I would say.
If you have like a sore spot or your breasts feel heavy and sore, that’s usually like the fibrous cysts. And that’s usually the one that’s related to your menstrual cycle. So I would say just start tracking it. You know, if it lines up at a specific time of the month, most likely hormonal. If it’s more of like a shooting pain that happens extremely randomly that’s not tied up with your cycle, it could be a bra fit or it could be your Or postural too.
Yeah, it could be you just need a chiropractic adjustment or after two years of breastfeeding, I almost guarantee you’ve got some of those intense knots right under your shoulder blade that probably rolfed out by a masseuse. Oh yeah, my brother in law is a rolfer. Is he? Yeah. Wouldn’t it be funny if his name was, if his name was Ralph and he was a rolfer?
It is not, it’s Billy. Oh, Billy the rolfer. That’s funny. Yeah, I wish they lived closer because that would be a nice service to have. Well, Brittany, I hope that helps you. Oh yeah, I did, sorry, I did want to mention before we move on if you notice new lumps on your chest or have like real chest pain or shortness of breath accompanied with that, then reach out to your doctor.
Otherwise, it’s quote, normal. Yeah, shortness of breath in general, just reach out to your doctor. Yes, always. Also, new lumps, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Separate, but, you know, either separate or together. Maybe really, yeah. Those are, those are red flags. Yeah, if you feel like you can’t breathe, you should get that checked out.
Awesome. Well let’s take like a little break quick, and then we’ll come back and start talking about rice. Alright, take this minute to deep breathe through our commercial break. And then prepare yourself mentally for rice cereal.
Alright, it’s Maureen here, and I want to tell you that I have finally set up a link so you can instantly book virtual lactation consults with me. Oh, thank the Lord. I know, Heather, it took me a long time to take the leap from in person visits to virtual, but I did it! You’re gonna love it. I love doing virtual consults.
They are the best. It serves more people. I’m so glad you took the plunge. Thank you, and if you guys out there want to book some time with me, you can go to HighlandBirthSupport. com and then click on my Lactation Services tab. Is that H I G H L A N D? Yes. Okay. I will see you on Zoom, everybody.
All right, Maureen. So, what is up with infant cereal? Where did this come from? And why are people so emotionally attached to it? Yeah, I have answers for your questions right now. Okay. So, finely ground grains mixed with warm water has been a traditional infant food for like thousands of years among cultures, right?
Lots of cultures, and it makes sense. You know, grains have been a staple in a lot of diets. We’re going to be grinding these finely and making kind of like a gruel for babies, you know? Makes sense. But at that time, through most of human history, we’ve been using what you would now call locally grown whole grains that were processed either in your home or your community.
Farm to table infant cereal. Right. This is not your grandma’s rice cereal. So. The whole concept of infant cereal in general is not a bad thing. Like, grains are really nutritious, they can be an absolutely wonderful staple to your diet and processing them in a way that it’s easy for your baby to eat them, also not a bad thing.
And I don’t, like, there’s nothing wrong with rice either, right? Globally, so many people have rice as their staple grain. And I’m going to preface the rest of what I’m saying by mentioning that this is mainly going to be focused on The processed rice cereal of Western culture, like American, American societies, America, Europe, specifically.
May I interrupt already? Yes. So why did you choose to focus on rice when there’s also oatmeal and barley? Let me tell you about that. One, because it’s the big controversy, right? The rice, cereal, and bottle thing. Like, it’s mostly about rice, and it is the most mass produced baby food grain. Okay.
Okay. So, what the heck am I even talking about now, if I’m not talking about the stuff I just mentioned? And so. With the rise of the European Industrial Revolution, yes we’re going back there, and the mass production of infant formula, see episode 19? Yeah, it’s 19, where we talk about the history of formula, and it’s a pretty good one.
Yes so too with this came the concept of store bought baby food. Yes, it’s that new 20th century. Wow. Okay, so if you listened to episode 19, you will remember when we talked about aggressive marketing and how harmful that was, and that is basically the story of rice cereal and baby food. Also, quick aside, This kind of stuff is still aggressively marketed, and they break the rules constantly.
Every day I see it. Every day. In every store. They are actually not allowed to put anything on the label that says, Close to breast milk, or similar to breast milk, because it’s just not. And yeah, they’re not allowed to mention its comparison to breast milk at all. It’s an alternative. They’re not supposed to say that because that’s considered manipulative marketing.
If you’re comparing it, to another food source that way. Then there’s like an implication that one is better and blah, blah, blah. Anyway it’s really complicated, but I think that law is important. And let me tell you another story why marketing laws are important. This food was aggressively marketed as superior to both human milk and formula.
Oh, okay. Prior to the early 20th century, it was standard to wait until about a year of age to begin solid foods for baby. And we talked about this in our weaning episode, it was even recommended in a lot of Western cultures to avoid fruits and vegetables until age 2. Oh, yeah. So this was like, people were not buying baby food and feeding it to their little babies.
They were breastfeeding or formula feeding, really, as long as they could. Now, with the industrialization of food supplies came the industrialization of infant food. In general, and so first there was this interesting story about like quote like the first marketed baby food or whatever where this guy like his wife was sick and he made a vegetable broth for his babies and they thrived on it.
So he was like, I’m gonna sell it. I don’t know. It’s a weird story to me. It kind of feels like glamorizing. Wait, I just can I so when you’re When you just said that, I imagine a dad that feels like he needs to be congratulated every time he does one chore that the mom does every single day and then turns it into, like, this big public service announcement, like, Here ye, hear ye, I once made one food for my baby and it didn’t die!
Yeah. Now everyone needs to do what I do! That’s kind of what it felt like. That’s exactly what it felt like reading this. And a lot of the articles were kind of like glamorizing that. And I was like, question mark. I don’t feel comfortable with that. Everyone’s giving Gary a gold star. You finally figured out how to one up.
Lactating parent. Good job, Gary. But anyway, of course it wasn’t long before larger food companies were like, what a great idea. Let’s do that. Gerber, the food giant, picked that up real quick. So basically they were like, hey, this is portable, convenient, very safe, safer than anything you’ll make at home, safer than formula, safer than baby food.
They took this marketing to a whole new level to overcome fear that actually Americans had about spoiled and contaminated canned food from the past like 20, 30, 40 years. There have been a lot of instances of people being poisoned by like botulism in canned food. Sure. Right. So Gerber was like, we have to overcome that.
So we’re just going to tell you this is the best food ever. Well, if you give it to a baby, it’s got to be safe for everyone. Right. So they targeted parents, but also dieticians and pediatricians with their marketing, sending samples to offices. Their ad campaign included research funded by Gerber that praise the benefits of all canned food and specifically baby food.
Now, let me say, if we see research that is funded by the company that it benefits, that is always like a red flag. Now, if it’s done recently, right? Like say it was done in 2021, we have mechanisms to look at that research and be like, is this high quality? Right. In 1920, we were still doing research, like, on unconsenting inmates, and on children who had no idea they were part of research studies, and on prisoners of war, you know?
Yeah. There were not regulations and checks and balances in place to make sure scientific research was actually done ethically or done well. Yeah. Also, I’m just really stuck on the fact that they’re like, it’s portable and convenient and you’re like, so is breast milk. Yeah. Well, and this was like supposed to replace baby food made at home, basically, more than anything, because that’s everybody made their baby food at home prior to this.
Okay. So their ads included messaging to convince parents that homemade baby food was unsafe and irresponsible. to feed your babies. Well, yeah, that’s how they get you. If you put fear out there and you drop that in the parent’s ear, they’re of course going to be like, well, I mean, if there’s a risk at all that I could be the one that harms my baby, I will gladly pass that responsibility off to a company.
Certainly the company is going to do their due diligence and make sure my baby has the best. Yeah, and it definitely, you know, that kind of advertising implied, too, that like that’s something poor people do. That’s something terrible parents do. Like, you are not a good parent if you do that. They also had another area of advertising that they would put in like women’s magazines that were basically like, This is freeing for the mother.
Just toss a jar in your purse and leave the house. Now you can get to work. Now you can, you know, be industrious and independent. Mm hmm. Yeah, barf. Thank you for your help. IT’s not this ridiculous corset, or the fact that I’m not allowed to go to work. I need to be free and independent within the confines of my own kitchen.
But don’t make the food in the kitchen. Please. Yeah, we also had this really, there’s this interesting intersection that at that time in history where it was just becoming normalized and idealized for parents to rely on pediatric advice for infant feeding and infant rearing rather than cultural or generational knowledge.
You know, this is intertwined with like, Big immigration moves, like people being separated from their cultures and families. So it gets really complicated, right? Yeah, but isn’t it also the time that your pediatrician was like the local doctor? Mm hmm. You know, there was like that guy. Yeah. You know, which is almost kind of better in a way, because at least it’s like that person knows all of your kids, the entire, you’d be able to see like a neighborhood of people would all be sick if the one pediatrician was giving bad advice everywhere, right?
Yeah, but where were the checks and balances for that? That’s also true. They were not there. Practicing in a vacuum. Yeah. So we have Gerber like sending samples of baby food, including rice cereal, but this is just in general, two pediatricians being like, feed, tell everyone to feed this to their babies.
And so when that happened. The age of introducing solids dropped dramatically, right, from a year to as little as 24 hours. Some doctors were being like, you should put, give your baby rice cereal at 24 hours old. Most parents ended up introducing purees. at four to six weeks old. And this food was advertised as like strong and healthy and better than a liquid diet.
Right? Like think of the first Gerber baby drawing. Like it was like, you will have this cute chubby cherubic baby. If you feed them Gerber foods as early as possible. Wow. So, advancing even further in this weird cultural stuff, and I’m trying to give you this background so we understand, like, why grandma is so, like, fucking crazy about rice cereal.
Because this is the world she grew up in, right? Yeah. And then, you know, we have all these wars happening, World War II, the Cold War, blah, blah, blah. And there was an idea that in the USA we had to raise children who were strong and competitive so they could fight in wars. Which is something we don’t think about, right?
It’s like not in our cultural just norm right now. And so basically the idea was like you were doing your child and your country a disservice and doing them harm if you didn’t introduce them to superior commercial baby food as soon as possible. What? Crazy. And especially apparently that advertising was really intense during the Cold War, which is nuts because like there was the impending threat of Russia, like every male should be ready for your country.
It was wild and we had basically no scientific evidence that this was helpful or harmful until the 1970s. Well, also the 60s and 70s is where everything was being processed and dehydrated and put in boxes, like the instant gravy and, you know, instead of making from like the gravy bacon fat that you kept in a dish above your stove that never even had a lid on it.
It was like, Oh, now it’s going to be in a box and you microwave it. Yeah, totally. So this is the context we’re operating in when we introduce rice cereal to the market. Okay, it was first mass produced and marketed in the 1930s, and it was originally known as Pablum. Pablum? Yeah. I don’t see the Pablum with that.
Is that how you pronounce it? I feel like I’m saying that not right. I’ve never heard anybody say it. Okay. Advertisers were urging parents to mix it into baby’s bottle for babies, like, as young as or younger than six weeks. The combination of pablum and formula was marketed as the quote ideal first food for your baby.
Ugh. Yeah. What were the you might not know this, but when you were researching, did any of the ads mention what the expected benefits would be? Yeah, it was basically like you will have a happier baby who sleeps better and is stronger. See, this is where the sleep myth starts coming in. It is. So.
Basically, this recommendation had absolutely no scientific backing. It was not started by, like, a doctor. It was started by Gerber. And it was exclusively pushed by the manufacturers to parents and pediatricians, right? In a time when bottle feeding was extremely popular, breastfeeding rates were sharply declining, and that was quickly being seen as, like, dirty, lower class, not something you should be doing.
So, adding this to baby’s bottle Right was it parents are being told by their doctors that it would help their baby sleep through the night It would help them thrive You know, basically if you’re a terrible parent if you’re not giving this like don’t you want your baby to be happy? Well, and also when you’re very very vulnerable in that postpartum state and you’re exhausted and someone’s dangling sleep in front of your face Like oh, it’ll be so easy.
You’re gonna get a good night’s sleep. You know, that’s So mean. Yeah. Because it doesn’t really work like that. I mean, I’m sure you’ll tell me later in the episode, , but, and also I just wanna say like, oh, it’ll make your baby fat and happy. This is where we start to see fat babies as healthier. Mm-Hmm. than.
Leaner babies. And I just like, then there’s this whole dichotomy between our formula fed babies, fatter than breastfed babies are breastfed babies fatter. And it’s like before prior to this, I bet they just didn’t even care. It was just like, is your baby healthy and thriving? Oh, it’ll be more like, Oh, they look just like their dad.
And not like, Oh, look how chubby they are. They must be healthy because they’re chubby. I mean, and there is something to be said for that, I guess, but I mean, honestly, it’s like the idolization of the Gerber baby did a lot of harm, right? This like white, beautiful, chubby, ideal quote, you know, baby, you know who the Gerber baby was, right?
Jane Seymour. Oh. Weird. Yeah, you didn’t know that? No. Jane Seymour was the original Gerber baby. Ah, what a strange life. Yeah, Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman was. The Gerber baby. That’s so funny. Yeah. So, let that sink goodness. Anyway. So, now I have set the stage for why grandma loves rice cereal. Because it was essentially shoved down Mother’s throats, you know, when they were at their most vulnerable, shoved down baby throats technically, and then they shoved it down, baby’s throats,
So I guess my biggest question is like, was it safe? Did we see any bad outcomes from this ? Did anybody say uhoh? Like we’ve seen some bad outcomes, or were they just like, this crop of babies is just weird and unhealthy. I have no idea what it is. Yeah, so unfortunately, like we don’t have data that is really, you know, easy to interpret.
Right. But the short answer is no, it was not safe. No, it is not safe. We now know that adding rice cereal to a bottle is a major choking hazard. Yeah. And while it appears that really like a lot of babies did fine on these diets, they survived, they are adults now, whatever. We also know that a lot of babies aspirated rice cereal and some of them died and some of them have like lifelong pulmonary issues and, you know, major complications.
And we just also don’t actually know what the effect in the general population was when we fed babies like rice cereal and homemade formula exclusively. Like we don’t, we didn’t have a control population to. You know, collect data from and compare that to 50 years later, so we really can’t draw any conclusions from that, except that we know it is not it.
That specific makes at that time was really nothing like human milk. Well, and I mean, I can’t. I can’t say that I’ve not done it in the PICU, for example, like as a nurse in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. There are some kiddos that they will recommend rice cereal in a bottle for because they have such bad reflux.
Yeah, I may get to that later. Oh, okay. But now I’m wondering, I’m like, have they changed that? Because I haven’t done that in years and years. So, but I just, I, what I’m saying is, I’m sure some people that had babies in the PICU who received that treatment are like, well, they gave it to my baby and it really helped my baby.
And my baby was the most fragile. So it’ll definitely help your baby for sure. Okay. Yeah. The other thing about adding cereal basically indiscriminately to baby’s bottles, too, is that it just, you know this, it allows them to ingest more calories. That’s why, partially why people would do it in the NICU and PICU.
But, for your average baby, that just makes overeating the norm. Yeah, that’s a really important time where you’re like calibrating the baby’s full centers of their brain. And you’re basically like setting their metabolism and trying to teach their body digestive timing and all of that. It’s really tricky to unpack.
Once you start looking at the details, you’re like, this is too much. This is too much that everybody over 50 had this as their. Yeah, okay, no. Anyway So, so what changed? What changed from the gruel and the, you know, traditional grains mixed with water to, to now? Like why? Why am I concerned about rice cereal now, and I’m not really concerned about traditional human baby food?
And also, why are we talking about this in association with breastfeeding? Oh gosh, yes. Okay, let me see if I can unpack all that together right now. So, what changed is that now we are refining and processing grains to make baby cereal in mass. In that process, we do remove a lot of nutrients and basically all the fiber.
Fiber is really important in the food we eat. And that, you know, makes it more shelf stable and it makes it a more uniform food, right? But it also turns it into a much more, like, higher, highly glycemic food. And you know, less nutritional for us. So like high sugar, less nutrients. Yeah.
Basically. And then on top of that, so we have a food where we kind of took the grain and made it less good for us. And then we marketed it as better. Then those grains had to be fortified because they were lacking in healthy fats and vitamin D and choline and iron and all of that. So it’s like they’ve tried to fix them.
Well, it’s funny because when you see a label that says, now fortified with vitamin D, you think like, oh, it has extra vitamin D in it. And not really. No. What they’re saying is we took it out and then we put it back in. Right. And that’s just like a general problem with processed foods. Right. And it also is a general problem that then those are the most available foods for a lot of people.
Right. So where does like the poison come in? The arsenic. Remember a few years ago when the FDA had to get involved because there was like a whole arsenic poisoning situation in all of the baby food? Yeah. So here’s what’s going on with that. Some plants essentially bioaccumulate. Elements of their environment.
So, for example, like mustard plants accumulate heavy metals at a higher concentration than are found in the soil around them, and you can use them for bioremediation. You can, like, plant them in soil that’s contaminated and harvest them, and you’re removing heavy metals. Turns out rice does this with arsenic.
Sweet. And the kind of arsenic that we are very concerned about ingesting is inorganic arsenic, just to be clear. Rice is one of the highest arsenic containing foods, specifically inorganic arsenic partially because of that element of it just Accumulating it from the environment and partially because of how it’s grown.
It’s grown in these fields, essentially, that have to get flooded. So, like, any arsenic that’s in the water then gets deposited in the soil over and over. Yeah, and, like, some of the places that we farm are just terribly polluted places that we shouldn’t be growing food. And arsenic is naturally occurring, of course and it’s not harmful in small amounts.
The, it’s, it’s always the concentration that we’re concerned about, right? And, you know, we get more than added to that naturally occurring arsenic from the chemicals we use on and then just like general pollution, other chemicals as well. So anyway, rice cereal now accounts for about 55 percent of infant arsenic exposure in babies between 4 to 24 months.
Hmm, I wonder what the other exposure, oh, just rice cereal. Yes. Hold on, let’s say that one more time. Sorry. Just rice cereal. Accounts for 55 percent of infant arsenic exposure. Yes, just rice cereal, not rice. Just rice cereal. They actually, there’s some interesting stuff about that I have in a second.
But the FDA says that rice intake for infants primarily through rice cereal. infant cereal is about three times greater than for adults relative to body weight. So infants ingest a ton more of this than adults do. In fact, people eat the most rice relative to their body weight at approximately eight months of age.
Oh sweet, like right when your brain is developing. Exactly. And that is a big concern with arsenic ingestion as brain development. So there was this 2016 study from the JAMA Pediatrics, J A M A. I don’t know if people actually say it like JAMA, but I always do. Yeah, it’s more fun that way when you’re reading research.
found that babies who were fed rice cereal and other rice snacks had a higher and measurable concentration of arsenic in their urine as opposed to babies who were fed no rice. Now, with the highest concentration in urine was the babies who consumed the processed rice cereal. Those who ate just the rice snacks only had about double the arsenic level of the babies who had not eaten rice at all.
And let me say it. The rice snacks are also processed rice stuff. It’s like the baby teething crackers. Yeah, exactly. So, this is not people just eating rice. This is all like processed rice. At the time of the study, they found that by age one, 80 percent of babies had been introduced to rice cereal. Mm hmm.
And here’s a quote. It said, Emerging epidemiologic evidence suggests that arsenic exposure in utero and during early life may be associated with adverse health effects on the immune system and brain development specifically. Well, that’s not going to help us get stronger as a country for any war.
Yeah, Gerber was wrong. It’s a shocker. Not long after that study was published, the FDA then proposed their first limit on arsenic in baby food. Oh. They had never before had one. They tested over 76 samples of infant rice cereal from retail stores and found that more than half of them contained levels of inorganic arsenic that were higher than the proposed limit of 100 parts per billion.
Oh, Lord. So that’s concerning, right? So that’s concerning. Yeah, it is concerning. And I just wonder, you know, when you talk to like naturalist doctors who are more holistic, you know, for example, I had one ask me one time, he was like, what is the correct level of a heavy metal in a children’s body? And I was like, I don’t know.
And he goes, Zero. Yeah. It’s zero. And I was like, right. That makes sense. So it’s like, you can put these limits on the levels, but like, wouldn’t zero be better? Yeah. And it’s tough. Like, obviously our food is going to contain minute amounts of naturally occurring elements. Sure. But for the most part, they shouldn’t like really be detectable in your urine.
Now, I just want to be clear again, like, this is not me saying we should not eat rice. Rice is a staple for most of the world’s population, and it is perfectly healthy to eat. However, when we eat certain amounts of it, and it has been grown in places that are contaminated with arsenic, that is a problem.
And also, if your baby is not yet one year old, They don’t need it. Yeah. So I do want to talk to you about benefits of rice cereal and like, what are we telling people now, but we might need a little break. Yeah. Let’s take a quick break and we’ll talk about all of the benefits, if there are any, to using rice cereal when we get back and reminder that you can get our episodes ad free and early when you become a patron of the podcast.
And that link is in the show notes.
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Okay, welcome back. Maureen, can you maybe highlight any benefits to using rice cereal? Yes. So again, rice as a whole food and a whole grain is a great source of nutrients. Is it? Okay, hold on. It is. Are we talking about like white rice, brown rice, long grain, basmati? Dude, all rice has a lot of nutrients as a whole grain when it’s not like processed and had like fiber taken out of it and stuff.
Okay. And it’s easy to digest. It doesn’t tend to trigger allergic reactions like gluten and wheat based products do. It is well tolerated by most babies transitioning to solid foods and again, like, worldwide staple. However, rice cereal is essentially concentrated processed rice. And it is okay to be in baby’s diet if it is in the appropriate quantity.
How do we know the appropriate quantity? Yeah, there was really no clear guidance on that, which is well, I guess I always think about like, what would the cave people do? The cave people probably would not have access to rice unlimited, you know, so it’s like probably every once in a while you come across some rice, you grind it up.
You, you know, sure, why not, but probably like an everyday thing, like at 6 p. m. little Bobby gets some breast milk and his rice cereal. Yeah, it’s like we wouldn’t be feeding it to them in like absolute liquid, like chugging it down form. It would be like every time. Right. It would be like a solid food that then like takes up more space in the gut and we’re not eating quite so much.
It’s a little complicated, right? So. No, I don’t have that answer because nobody on their website was like here’s the limit, but you should use quote an appropriate quantity. But definitely not in the bottle, we know that. Yes, so levels of inorganic arsenic though vary widely by brand. Yay! Even for adult foods with rice in them, so you can check out the consumer report study of arsenic levels in a variety of products and decide which brand you feel more comfortable with.
And those links are always in our professional transcripts. Yes, so, what now? Rice cereal remains on the list of recommended first food for babies. Really, all over the place. However, rice cereal in a bottle is no longer recommended. It’s usually abbreviated as R. I. B., by the way. Rib. Rib. Rib. So, unless you are instructed specifically by a physician, Don’t put rice cereal in a bottle.
Even the AAP now says this which I have to say even because I feel like they’re always just like a little late on the uptake there. Rice cereal in a bottle can cause choking particularly in young infants who have weak oral motor skills. The AAP also notes that it might lead to excessive weight gain and constipation.
But, in a very recent survey from the American Academy of Pediatrics, by the way, most of the people surveyed were white parents, just have to clear that up, over 40 percent still said they were putting rice cereal in a bottle. And over 70 percent of those who then used that method, said that they perceived their babies slept better and gained better weight and were healthier.
They’re still buying into the rhetoric. Whether or not that’s true, for their babies, really, it’s very hard to tell. You guys know, right? Just like, trying to figure out what makes your baby sleep better feels like the hardest math equation in the world. Right. You gotta hold your mouth, right? The air temperature has to be on 71.
had to be washed four hours ago. Yeah. He likes it when it’s still slightly warm from the dryer, but only on his feet. Yeah, it’s just like, so, you know, and we have studies now that tell us that it does not make babies sleep better. So
that, that just feels like then people who are, of course, like listening to the elders in their families as we feel like we should but getting dangerous advice. And now, at this time, the only indication that I am aware of for putting rice in a bottle is if human milk or formula has to be thickened for a medical reason.
Now, there are other thickeners that are sold on the market that might be safer. It is traditionally used for babies with excessive spit up and vomiting, quote, severe reflux. However, Recent research is not really supporting that, and is leaning more toward things like calcemic protein allergy being the root cause of severe reflux.
So, rice cereal in the milk bottle wouldn’t really help with that. However, we still routinely see pediatric practices failing to, like, use those up to date guidelines. And the real, like, More research evidence based reason for thickening milk is that it’s an effective intervention for reducing the risk of pulmonary aspiration caused by dysphagia.
And that’s just like not something that is common. Right. Yeah, if you have a baby who’s just like a little quote unquote colicky who wakes up twice a night or three times a night, this ain’t for you. Yeah, exactly. We also now, of course, have the recommended age to start solids and introduce something like rice cereal being mostly at six months with major health organizations.
So we’re not doing that at six weeks. Please, for the love of God, don’t do that. And then interesting thing I read, though, is scientists at the Cleveland Clinic studied the effect of cereal, rice cereal, specifically, on infant sleep and found that adding in rice cereal did nothing at all to speed up the age of sleeping through the night.
And the first uninterrupted six plus hour stretch of sleep came no earlier for those who had rice cereal in their diet. Let’s say it one more time for the people in the back, there is no scientific evidence to date that supports the claim that cereal equals better sleep. None. None. Sorry guys. Now, I know a lot of our listeners might be being like, don’t we already know this?
It’s all over the news, the arsenic and the sleep and blah blah, why are we talking about it?
Every article I read had a comment like this one. I’m just going to read it to you. This was from Judy. Judy. Okay, I was raised that babies get a bit of pablum in their bottles at one month old. I slept as a baby much better. I also did this for my kids when I became a mother. My baby slept much better also.
I’ve now been a foster parent to over a hundred newborns. I hope not. And I give them all Pablum in a bottle at one month, and they all sleep very well, whilst my friends and relatives and babies never sleep through the night till 12 or 18 months. Mine slept through the night in three months. Happy baby, happy mama.
Whoa, Judy. Whoa. I feel like I had to pull that comment, because I was like, this literally just sums up. Every mother-in-law, grandma, aunt who’s never had kids like, because it’s always such an extreme example. It’s not just like, I had one baby and I did this and it worked. It’s like, no, it was like your 15 aunts and uncles all had it and they were healthier than every other baby I’ve ever met with no symptoms.
It was ne, and also I slept better as a baby, which I totally remember. Yeah, it’s like what? Also I just have to note when you’re fostering a baby you can’t use donor milk Because it’s a whole situation. Like, I just, I have friends that are foster parents and they wanted to get donor milk for this 8 month old they were fostering.
It depends on where though. Some places allow it, but not here. But you can’t just, you can’t just do it. So like the fact that Judy could just put Pablum in a hundred newborn bottles, you know, and like we can’t get breast milk and treat it the same way. It’s like it’s where we know one has benefits and the other one has harm.
Yeah. And it’s like the myth of rice cereal in the quote knockout bottle just prevails. Like, how do we kill that? How do we make it die? Oh, knockout. Like you’re knocking them out for sleep. The knockout bottle. That’s what they call it. Yeah. The knockout bottle. So I don’t know, I guess like time to tell older generations to kindly like, wake the F up and see that this entire thing was a marketing scam that they fell prey to.
Ouch. And that hurts. That’s hard to admit. It’s hard to admit that something you felt like helped you was actually harmful marketing targeted at you to take your money. Or you could just say, listen, I’m glad it worked out, Judy. I’m glad it worked out for you. And just leave it at that, and then just go do you, and then you teach your children.
And then, you know, also, when you become a grandma, or a grandpa, go into it with an open mind, you know? Yeah, I mean, and that, that’s like, I get that it can be really hard to let go of things that you feel like you were a good person for doing. Yeah. And it turns out you weren’t. Like that, that’s hard because that gets at like some of your core identity.
Yeah. When you attach morality. Right. To these actions when really, like, you were just doing your best out there in 1945. I’m just doing my best now in 2022. And they are not the same thing. We are not in the same life circumstances. We are not in the same scientific world. Like, Yeah, and also the environment is changing like this wouldn’t have applied in 1850 because people were still totally, you know, using their whole grains that they grew on their family farm.
So this would be all crap back then. So we have to change with the environment change with the times the current regulations. Yeah. And like the arsenic issue was probably not as big of a concern, you know, when our world was less polluted. Right. But I do want to just tell you, if you see the word fortified on anything, just assume that it’s not better.
It’s that they replaced what should have been there anyway. Yeah. Or like, you know, some public health committee decided like, Oh, okay. This is the only food parents are really feeding their kids. So like, we have to make it like a whole diet food now. Oh, yeah. You know, like, that’s why, like, there’s a lot of weird stuff added to milk because they’re like, oh, okay, milk is, like, the only thing children drink, so now it has to cover their entire dietary needs.
Stay tuned for an episode on milk. Cow milk. I gotta do it. Okay. I’ll be so excited. Oh, gosh. All right, well, we’re gonna thank another one of our sponsors before we get to a really amazing award today for a very deserving gal, so please stick around to the end and we’re gonna read one of our reviews, which is so fun.
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All right, today’s award goes to Becky from Philadelphia, who’s one of our new patrons. And Becky says, my win is this. My child Eli was born two weeks ago. I had it the unmedicated birth I wanted, even though I was in the hospital and had to be induced. I had an amazing support team, midwives, nurses, doula, and my husband.
With their support and encouragement, I pushed my baby out on a. birthing stool. Now I’m going with the flow of the daily challenges and wins of parenting and breastfeeding. That’s amazing. I have to say being induced is no small feat to do unmedicated. Yeah, they basically push you to the brink of insanity and hunger and like claustrophobia in those rooms and being tied to monitors and stuff.
So your support team also gets a little high five because that is really hard to do You know, by yourself, and I love I love to see that like you can go in with a birth plan and then have everybody respected and also your hospital has a birthing stool, which is rad because not everyone does. And, you know, like this isn’t an exact number, but I’m pretty sure something like 80 percent of the world delivers their babies in a squatting position, but not in the United States were pretty much mostly on our backs.
Yeah, I don’t know, but I do know that it usually feels better for people. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so awesome. Which award should we give Becky today? I think I would like to give you the Fantastic Flow Award because you just like Went with the flow of your induction, you listened to your body, you know, you had an amazing team who was there with the flow too.
I mean, it just sounds like you guys all had a great vibe together. Yeah. Becky, continue flowing. Going with that flow, trusting your instincts, you’ve got really good ones, and reach out to your support system, and we’re sending you all kinds of love. Yes, absolutely. Okay, well should I read a review? Yes, please.
Okay, I have a great review to read. Let’s see, this one says, well, who is this from? This one is from Bethede. Beth y day? Beth y day. I like it. I’m not sure. But I’m sure your name is really cool. And they said, I love this podcast. I was enjoying the current episode so much that I started over from episode one.
What? Yeah. And they said my only regret is that I didn’t start listening sooner. Oh, that is so sweet. You guys, we read every single review, so please don’t hesitate to leave them for us because it really does brighten our day and remind us why we work so hard to do this for everyone. Yeah, and we have like almost 400 reviews now or something crazy.
It’s wild. I’m trying not to do that too loud. On Apple Podcasts. So yeah, Apple Podcasts is the best place to leave us a review. You can do it on Spotify now. Oh, cool. Yeah, I was going to say, like, if you don’t have that player, that’s fine. You can also leave us a review on, like, Facebook. Oh, yeah. Which I, sometimes it doesn’t tell us that they’re there.
It’s a weird thing. But anyway, you can leave it there and I would love it. Yeah, we’ll read it either way. All right. Well you know, I think what we got out of today was don’t put rice cereal in your bottles. Go with the flow. Change your mind as the environment changes. And don’t be a dick of a grandma.
and thank you for listening to another. Episode of the Milk Minute Podcast. Absolutely. It, you know, the way we changed this big system that just does not work to serve new parents is by educating ourselves, our friends, our family, and our healthcare providers about lactation. If you found value in this episode that we produced for you today, You can show us some love by joining our Patreon and there’s different tiers available to you, depending on what you’re into.
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