Breastfeeding Situation in Saudi Arabia and Recent Approaches in The Development of Follow-on Formula for Facing Breastfeeding Difficulties

Infant formulae are an alternative to breastfeeding for many parents, despite breastfeeding providing all of the benefits for an infant. In cases where breastfeeding is not possible, infant and follow-on formulas should be recommended. It is well known that the compositions of cow milk proteins are very different from human milk and infants do not tolerate it.Unfortunately,the majority of follow-on formulae are formulated on the basis of using cow milk whey in their composition. So, many researchers suggested the use of goat or camel milk fractions as a base for making infant formulae.On the other hand, efforts made by researchers for the valorization of milk whey revealed that using camel or goat whey in infant feeding has great benefits for increasing the nutritional and biological values and digestibility of milk proteins. Also, fermented formulae are recommended for infants since they promote digestibility and tolerance and are considered safe for infants. Therefore, using lactic acid bacteria to produce fermented and/or acidified infant milk formulae has been recommended by many researchers.This review is mainly focused on the importance of using follow-on formulae for feeding newborns when breastfeeding is not an option. As well, the review presents the approaches that have been used to prepare different follow-on formulae based on the use of different milk types to provide nutritional and functional properties as close as possible to human milk. Also, proposed recent trends for improving the nutritional value of formulae to narrow the gap between using regular formulae and infant’s needs are shown.