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Worried mothers in China are going to great lengths to get their hands on imported milk, causing retailers in the UK and elsewhere to ration sales.
When a child is born in China, anxious new parents often prize one gift above all others: imported formula baby milk, usually hand-carried from overseas to ensure it's the real thing.
Fearful of the dangerous levels of hormones and chemicals sometimes found in Chinese baby formula, parents in mainland China often go to great lengths to secure foreign brands.
"My child only drank formula that was posted from Japan by my cousin who was studying there," explains Liu Fang in Beijing, the mother of a three-year-old boy.
Ms Fang says she imported baby formula from Japan and the US for her son "When the Japanese nuclear power plant leaked, my son drank American formula which was mailed from the US."
Long-term breastfeeding is rare among Chinese mothers, who often doubt the quality of their breast milk.
Those who can afford it choose to buy imported formula over Chinese brands.
The result? China's so-called "4-2-1 families", made up of four grandparents and two parents doting on a single child, pool their money and scour the globe for safe sources of food.
Some buy imported baby formula from online stores, which regularly post photos displaying walls of baby formula amassed from overseas.
"My warehouse is full of baby formula!" posted one online seller who calls herself Sunshine Grass.
"My husband purchased it in Canada and packed it himself, so it's definitely not fake."
One common brand of milk powder, Enfrapro, costs approximately $22 (£14) per tin in Canada but re-sells for an average of $44 on Taobao, a popular online retailer in China.
Originally posted by yourignoranceisbliss
I must presume the reasoning for new mothers not breastfeeding their own babies is because the mothers themselves are not producing healthy milk. Probably because their food and environment are badly polluted.
The short answer to this question is NO – you do not need to maintain a perfect diet in order to provide quality milk for your baby. In fact, research tells us that the quality of a mother’s diet has little influence on her milk. Nature is very forgiving – mother’s milk is designed to provide for and protect baby even in times of hardship and famine. A poor diet is more likely to affect the mother than her breastfed baby.
According to Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D., breastfeeding researcher and anthropologist, women throughout the world make ample amounts of quality milk while eating diets composed almost entirely of rice (or millet or sorghum) with a tiny amount of vegetables and occasional meat.
Originally posted by yourignoranceisbliss
I must presume the reasoning for new mothers not breastfeeding their own babies is because the mothers themselves are not producing healthy milk. Probably because their food and environment are badly polluted.