Infant formulas, better known as artificial milk for babies, are currently made from cow's milk or soy preparations. Soy "milk" does not just make a lot of grace to some parents and health professionals (including myself), because it contains phytoestrogens and cow's milk causes allergy or intolerance to many babies, who end up taking soy or some hydrolyzed preparation.
As well, From now on, infant formulas can also be made with goat's milk, since the Council of Ministers has approved a Royal Decree that will modify the regulation of infant formulas and then adding goat's milk as a source for the manufacture of such preparations.
The new Royal Decree will thus include Directive 2013/46 / EC of the European Union, which accepted goat's milk proteins as a possible source of infant formula, or to be combined with cow's milk proteins. That is, how much we can find formulas made with cow's milk, with goat's milk, or with both.
Is goat milk more beneficial for infants?
The question we can ask ourselves in this situation is: Is it good or bad news? Will it change anything? Well, neither better nor worse, different. Goat's milk will be a good solution for those children who are intolerant or allergic to some component of cow's milk (and not to the beta-lactoglobulin protein, as goat's milk also contains it), but nutritionally it will not entail any benefit because the preparation will have goat's milk as a protein source, but it must go through the laboratory to add, modify or eliminate nutrients in order to achieve a preparation that meets the standards imposed by the Royal Decree.
It is often said that, being an animal smaller than the cow, goat's milk is more similar to breast milk. Well, if we had to choose which milk to drink as adults, it is possible that the goat is more adapted to our size than that of cow, but the flavor factor can pull back a little, because it is stronger. If we talk about similarity towards breast milk, it depends. In some things it looks more like cow's and in others it looks less (you can look at a comparison chart here), so if I had to say which milk looks more like the mother's I would say no, because the ones that most resemble each other are cow's milk and goat's milk, which are very similar.
Why children's preparations will be made with goat's milk
The EFSA (European Food Safety Authority), at the request of the Dairy Goat Co-Operative, which is the world's leading company in the production of goat's milk, which requested that the suitability of this milk be assessed to prepare the formulas of infants and then issued a statement in 2012 in which, after analyzing the composition of goat milk and after observing a study done with babies who had taken goat milk and others who had taken cow's milk, he concluded that growth and development was even in all children and that, consequently, it was an adequate source for infant and continuation preparations.
What will impact the mothers?
Well, when I go to buy milk you can choose between more options. Now in addition to the formulas made with cow's milk and soybeans you can buy those made with goat's milk. I do not know if babies will like it more or less, because the taste of infant formulas of cow's milk is also very variable, but I'm curious to know and I confess that as soon as I get a sample, I will try to see (I have already tried several infant formulas, so for one more ...).
At the nutritional level, what has been said, the preparation will be regulated by the same Royal Decree that allows its use, so I doubt that there are benefits for babies by taking one or the other (If you hurry me, it seems that goat's milk has a healthier fatty acid profile, but we talk about unmodified milk, since the fatty acids of the formula milks that come from the cow are modified) and most likely Some manufacturers even combine both milks to make a formula.
