One dislikes starting off the term of a new government with criticism. It’s better to wait a while and see what proposals it has or what progress it makes in the first 100 days. After the disappointments of the last ten years, when expectations and hopes in the medical field were seldom met, one’s inclination is to stay quiet and give the new people an opportunity to see what they are made of.
Two proposals, however, neither of which is new and neither of which ever helped anyone, the “Milk Grant” and the “Computer Grant,” have been brought back for a second try. Both should be reviewed before implementation because they both have health implications, one physical, the other mental.
The first is that old canard, a favourite of Mrs Kamla Persad-Bissessar, the idea that giving mothers “milk” will help them to feed their children better.
There are so many reasons why this is not a good idea. First of all, another giveaway? Another reason to continue the dependency syndrome. Haven’t we had enough of that? Before you start another freeness, shouldn’t you make sure it is going to be helpful?
This isn’t.
Because milk, cow’s milk, whether it’s disguised as a “formula” or not, causes people to become ill. I mention this formula business because there are people in T&T today, who think formula is not cow’s milk but something “special” made for babies. It is most definitely not.
Breastmilk, however, is made for babies. All children under the age of one year should be breastfed. Breastmilk keeps babies healthy. Over one year, children do not need milk unless it is breastmilk. They need solids, foods like rice, peas and calaloo, plantain, dasheen and yam, fish and coo-coo (well-cooked as recommended by a former PM), zaboca, green fig and tomato, mango, bananas, paw-paw or any one of the numerous forgotten fruits we have, tamarind, soursop, sapodilla, pomerac, guava etc.
A national policy of handing out milk, and it has to be formula in the first year since babies cannot drink whole cow’s milk before they are one year old, is anti-breastfeeding because it discourages mothers from trying to breastfeed. Shouldn’t the policy be to assist mothers to breastfeed their babies?
This will result in a healthier population and at the same time save money by reducing the need to import formula. Cow’s milk is really a horrible food. It’s associated with many diseases.
Over the age of one, most children do not like milk because it gives them gas and belly pain. They are lactose intolerant. Most Trinidadians are lactose intolerant, ie we do not have the enzyme in the intestine that digests the carbohydrate in milk called lactose. This is not unique to T&T. Three out of every four humans cannot digest lactose. Northern Europeans and a few other selected human groups like the Masai of East Africa, who are cattle owners and have evolved drinking cow’s milk, can. Not most of humanity.
The protein in cow’s milk is the most common cause of allergy, cow’s milk allergy. It should be called formula allergy. It causes gas, colic and constipation in children. Apart from formula allergy, this protein is associated with other allergies like sinus disease, ear infections, bronchial asthma and skin diseases like chronic inflammatory dry skin or eczema and acne.
Awful stuff!
Formula babies are three times more likely than breastfed babies to be obese children and obese adults. Obesity is intimately linked to strokes, heart disease and type 2 diabetes. If we are serious about doing something about the NCDS, we need to start in infancy. Handing out formula or milk may make immediate political sense but is counterproductive in the long term.
To make things worse, formula (modified cow’s milk) is linked to the two most common types of cancer in T&T, breast and prostate.
Finally, too much milk causes a uniquely Trinidadian disease in babies called “the milkalcoholic syndrome”. It was first described in the 1970s at the San Fernando General Hospital by Dr Bruce Symmonds, the first paediatrician in T&T. The babies were grossly overweight, anaemic and sluggish. They were being stuffed with cow’s milk. That 70s idea, that cow’s milk is good for babies is still around and politicians find it an easy mark to try to demonstrate goodliness and kindness. But it is wrong and not a good idea, medically, financially or culturally.
Why would the Ministry of Health agree to encouraging babies to drink more milk? Is it that they have not been consulted or are there other pressures at work?
It would be more useful to legislate longer maternal leave and assist farmers in producing cheap local food so that mothers and fathers can raise healthy children.
