Don't be fooled by marketing (SMA Baby Food in General)

Member Name: Trixi

Product:	SMA Baby Food in General
Date:	27/02/04 (1480 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It works, specially formulated for your babies needs

Disadvantages: Don't be fooled by the blurb

I am a relatively new mum, who had every intention that I was going to breastfeed.....My daughter had other ideas however. After days in hospital trying to breastfeed, all my daughter wanted to do when she got near my breast was fall asleep. We had get food into her but I had no idea what formula was best... Although I was also bottle fed, had had no idea what my mum used.... so I opted for SMA Gold becase it was a brand I knew.

Writing a review on formula is difficult because I don't know the varying tastes (obviously) but I do know that my bonnie wee lass took to it without any problem.
Preparing the bottles is relatively easy... (I can only speak about SMA gold here) The tin has clear and concise instructions with a guide of how much formula to mix with water in accordance to the age and weight of your baby. It also tells you how many feeds a day are appropiate, This is however a guideline. It is important however to keet the proportions of water and formula accurate.

But how does SMA formula milk products differ? Now a bit about the the blurb on the tin.
SMA Gold
SMA Gold is a whey based infant milk which is probalbly most like breast milk, providing all they various nutrients. The marketing says that it is suitable from birth and there is no real need to change the type of milk you use for the first 6 months.

SMA White
This is a casine (curd) based product, with different types of proteins.... the producers say that this can be more satisfying for the hungrier baby but from my experience health professional may have a different opinion... more about that in a minute....

SMA Progress
The producersof SMA say that the Progress milk is for babies that are from 6 months to 2 years and provides the calcuim, iron and vitamins for your baby.... It is more suitable than cows milk.

All the SMA products retail at the same price ( About £5.88 for a 900g tin) So this looks straight forward... not so..

.
My local health visitor took time to explain her viewpoint....

The whey based milk is easy to digest for a baby but is actually costly to produce in comparison to the casine based milk. advised to keep my baby on SMA gold for at least a year...because the casine based milk is harder to digest and can put a strain on other organs ( I think the health visitor said the kidneys but I could be wrong) Casine milk is less costly to produce. My health visitor said that the hungrier baby tag that is on the packaging of SMA White is more of a marketing ploy to get mums or dads to switch to the product that costs less to produce.

Summary: