Soy Milk Formulas Won't Hurt, but Don't Always Help

May 6, 2008 — -- To soy or not to soy?

Parents often have to make the choice when it comes to feeding formula to their babies.

But in a clinical report based on a review of available information just released, experts have delivered the definitive word on feeding infants soy protein-based formulas versus cow milk formulas: Why use soy at all?

The first year of life is a time of rapid growth and development, unmatched by any other time in life. Infants are sustained by a single nutrition source, so it has to be the ideal one.

While cow milk and soy formulas are nutritionally the same, the long-term benefits — and drawbacks — to using soy formulas are still unclear.

"Why feed it when there is no indication for it?" said Dr. Jatinder Bhatia, a professor of pediatrics at the Medical College of Georgia, and one of the lead authors of the report by the Committee on Nutrition for the American Academy of Pediatrics. "Cow milk is the preferred choice if you cannot breast-feed."

Soy protein-based formulas have been part of general pediatric practice for more than 50 years. Physicians, sometimes attributing fussiness to cow milk formula, recommended a switch to soy, unnecessarily, some pediatricians say. Soy formula became a quick fix go-to for problematic infants.

"When a mother came into the office complaining about colic, fussiness, excessive spitting, constipation — you name it — and attributing it to the infant's cow milk formula, the first thing I did was change the infant to a soy formula," said Dr. Frank Greer, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin and the other lead author of the report.

"If the situation improved for whatever reason, the child was thought to be allergic or intolerant of cow milk by the mother, thus promoting a myth of cow milk allergy/intolerance," Greer said.

About 3 percent of infants have milk allergies and most will outgrow them, according to the Nemours Foundation, a children's health care provider. A soy formula could be used in place of milk if an infant has an immune reaction to the cow milk protein.