A recent NY Times opinion column1 asked the question: What is available worldwide, requires no new technology, costs no money and could save more than 800,000 children’s lives a year? The answer was “breastfeeding.”
While the opinion was written while the authors were in Kenya, the implications are worldwide. Many African women give water, instead of breast milk, to their babies during the first six months of life. Unlike more developed nations, this water comes right out of rivers and is not treated. Babies do not have fully developed immune systems, so they are at risk from pathogens found in river water.
However, the estimate of saving 800,000 newborns a year is a world-wide number, based on data suggesting less than half of all babies born around the world are nursed by their mothers. Apart from water, the major replacement for mother’s milk is artificial baby formula. The components of formula, while the best effort of humans, falls short of natural mother’s milk. For example, colostrum, the milk produced for 2-4 days after birth, is highly concentrated with white cells, stem cells, antibodies, and immune factors that protect the baby from infection. Transitional and mature milk continue providing these ingredients and nutrients in less concentrated form.
Why the decline in breastfeeding? Some mothers are unable to produce enough milk. Some cultures have a social stigma connected with publicly feeding a baby. Some claims imply formula is as good as mother’s milk.
I want to focus on the divine plan that was, perhaps, unintentionally inserted into the NY Times article. The authors stated, “In many ways, breast milk is miraculous. It has been custom designed for babies’ health over thousands of years.”
The word “miracle,” from the Latin miraculum, was used to translate ancient Hebrew and Greek words for “wonder” or “sign.” Of all the miracles mentioned in the Bible, none deal specifically with breast milk. There are, however, scriptures indicating its vital importance in health and well-being. The Lord likened the ignorance of wicked Israelites to babies who were plucked from breastfeeding (Isaiah 28:9). To grow in our faith, we must be like newborns who crave spiritual milk (1 Peter 2:2). We learned to trust in God when at our mother’s breast (Psalm 22:9).
It is impossible to separate the wonder of breast milk from the custom design for a baby’s health. We believe God never acts against the ultimate order He has created. Yet we have only a superficial knowledge of the creative order. The Bible simply states that God created humans (Genesis 1:27). Just as no complex physics algorithms were offered in the creation of the universe, so too, we have no biological details of the complexity of human life. We have, though, discovered how carefully God designed milk for newborns. While manufacturers may be reluctant to admit their formula is no match for what the Lord had designed, we cannot but stand in awe of God’s almighty creation, from gametes to babies to breast milk.
I wonder if more of us considered mother’s milk to be a miracle, whether we would be more motivated to help all mothers see this wonder; not from a humanitarian perspective, but from reverence to the divine design.
1 https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/08/opinion/breastfeeding-africa-women.html by Nicholas Kristof and Trisha Mukherjee, 1-8-2025
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