Well Water

A friend called to talk about how she was doing since delivering her third child a few months ago.  She had made the switch to formula when her milk supply decreased suddenly and unexpectedly. There was no explanation and no amount of pumping or fenugreek ( an ancient herb that can increase milk production)  could remedy the situation. She needed to use formula and was worried about mixing powdered formula with the water from their well. She was also worried about rinsing the bottles in the well water.  They moved to the house out in the country after their second child was 3, and they had been buying 5 gallon jugs of filtered water for drinking and some cooking.  Their well water has a profound sulfur smell and leaves mineral stains on the sink and in the dishwasher.  I strongly urged her to use ready to feed, canned formula, and to use the filtered bottled water to clean and rinse the baby’s bottles and nipples, as well as rinsing the children’s cups, plates and utensils, until they could get an assessment of the quality of their water and what could be done to remedy the situation.  It just reminds me of how many different aspects there are to keeping our children safe and healthy and how many of us take our clean fresh drinking water for granted.