“In the future, breast milk and baby formula could even be turned into a drug to help treat sick babies.”
Over at Future Human, our staff writer Emily Mullin writes that a crop of new biotech companies have sprung up to provide better alternatives to breastfeeding. While infant formula, which is based on animal milk, has been around for decades, it differs from human breast milk in many ways. Harnessing advances in biotech, researchers are finding ways to create milk that’s as close as possible to the real thing. Companies are finding ways to synthesize humanlike nutrients, “grow” breast milk in the lab, and even use it to deliver medication.
The advances are cool, but they don’t address the core issue: that new mothers in the United States don’t get enough time off work to spend with their babies. As one expert told Emily, “Even as these new and improved baby formulas are developed, people who want to breastfeed must feel supported.”
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