Artificial feeding: progresses and problems

The introduction of infant formulas represents an important result in the field of the newborn and infant artificial feeding, reducing the gap with maternal feeding. In the last decade technological evolution allowed to obtain milk formulas which became more and more similar to human milk starting from cow's milk, thus obtaining a composition adequate to the digestive and nutritional requirements of the newborn and of the infant, starting from the model of the breast feeding (infant formulas). The major differences between human and cow's milk have been corrected by dilution, skimming, addition of carbohydrates, acidification. From an allergenic viewpoint, in a recent study, we observed that no significant differences can be observed in the development of atopic symptoms for children supplemented with different substances in the first 5 days of life or receiving cow's milk infant formulas in the first three months of life, compared to those breast fed. In the case of the development of intolerance or allergy to cow's milk proteins, the substitution of the cow's milk based formula with hydrolysed or soy formulas is required. Maternal feeding represents the best choice for the nutrition of the newborn; however, when it is not possible, milk formulas despite they still show marked differences with human milk, concerning both nutrients and defensive factors, allow to reach satisfactory results about both nutrition and health.