Back to Basics.

Imagine if - just for a day - you couldn't wash the dishes, flush the toilet, take a shower, water the house plants, wash your hands/ teeth or use the washing machine.

These are just a few of the things we take for granted in our privileged part of the world.  We have safe, mains water piped to our homes.  It comes on with the pull of a switch or the turn of a tap.

We look on with pity at the TV pictures of those less fortunate than ourselves, the women queueing for water at a pump and washing their clothes in rivers.  We remind ourselves that we are fortunate because in the Western World this is not something we have to deal with.

The dangers are obvious.  UNICEF says:

'Unsafe drinking water, along with poor sanitation and hygiene, are the main contributors to an estimated 4 billion cases of diarrhoeal disease annually, causing more than 2.2 million deaths worldwide. Of these, some 1.5 million occur in children under five.'

Apart from the other risks associated with formula feeding of infants, it is an accepted fact (even amongst those who use formula) that the risks of powdered formula milk is increased hugely when the water supply is poor.  I have often heard people (including my own relatives) say 'formula is fine, it's only a problem in the Third World where they don't have clean water'.

But we don't live in the Third World though, do we?  So that's ok then....

Unless - like me, you live in the 'developed world' and suffer from a compromised water supply.

Last Christmas we had no mains water in my home from Boxing Day (26th December) until New Year's Eve - five days.  My neighbours' water went off on the 22nd - nine days.  You might think 'sure that's no big deal, brush your teeth with bottled water and fill up at your neighbours house'.  Yup - that's what I thought too.  Thing is, my neighbours' supplies were off, my family's too, and the shops had sold out of bottled water.  I couldn't get through to the water board and their website was down.  We were promised a delivery of 'emergency water' on the 27th, but of course nothing arrived.  When I DID eventually manage to speak to someone from the Northern Ireland Water Board their advice was to collect snow and rainwater to melt...



This is a photo of every pot and pan I own filled with water.  That was before it went off. 
My husband thought I was mad.

Our mains pipes had burst due to the extreme cold weather here, (lasting several weeks, temperatures below -10 degrees),  and when that happened somehow the local reservoirs also ended up being drained.

Unlike years ago, our town no longer has a functioning well (of course not, that's positively primitive isn't it?) - so we literally had nowhere to turn.  To be honest it was a total nightmare, and not for the first time I thought about the realities of trying to formula feed a young baby in such a situation.

You think it can't happen to you don't you? 

You're wrong.

'About 80% of the world's population lives in areas where the fresh water supply is not secure, according to a new global analysis.  Researchers compiled a composite index of "water threats" that includes issues such as scarcity and pollution.'

The chances are, that if you're reading this blog, you probably live in one of the 'high stress' areas of this map.  I confess this map shocked me but like many things I was able to push it out of my mind when I first saw it...  However, nothing brings the realities of water stress home to you more than wondering how you're going to cope without water for an unspecified amount of time.

My daughter was two years old last Christmas, and fortunately she was able to have water from a safe source throughout the 'wet drought'.  She was also still being breastfed.  We were very lucky!  Boiling rainwater to kill bacteria might make it safer, but there is no way of knowing exactly what chemicals that rainwater might still contain. 

'Fine particles or soot, a large fraction of which are formed from the same gases as acid rain (sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide), have been shown to cause premature deaths and illnesses such as cancer and other diseases' ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_rain

If I had been formula feeding a young baby, quite frankly I'd have been very concerned.  Not only had the supermarkets sold out of bottled water - but they were also very low on pre-made formula.  Even where they did have some left, there are no guarantees that they'd have the right brand, and babies react differently to different brands - so it's a bit of a minefield. 

It's not something many mums consider when they're struggling with breastfeeding, but I did wonder at the time how many new mums here (in Northern Ireland) were struggling to sterilise and make up clean bottles for their babies last Christmas?  Of course it's not always easy to breastfeed, and good support and advice is so often not there when people need it - but formula feeding has risks.  One of those risks comes from using contaminated water.  


In wet weather flooding can contaminate reservoirs.  Water in Glasgow was contaminated with cryptosporidium in 2002.  Anyone failing to correctly prepare their formula feeds during this time would certainly have put their baby at risk of a potentially serious illness.  We face an increasing strain on our vital water supply.  We can no longer look out of our ivory towers and down our noses at the third world where formula feeding is more dangerous, since in reality we can easily face the same problems.

The truth is, it only took a few days of sub-zero temperatures to leave thousands of homes without safe water right here in the UK.  I would put money on it happening again too.

Personally, I'd like to see a few more of these:

I have lots of empty bottles and buckets, and a wheelbarrow to put them all in.  If a situation occurred again where there was no mains water, all I'd need would be somewhere to fill them up - but there isn't anywhere.  

After I finished writing this post in it's original form (last December) I rang my sister to see if she had any luck getting water out of my cousin's well.  It's located in the yard of an C18th farmhouse and it was dug long before anyone took our natural resources for granted.  Back then everyone breastfed - you had to!  My relatives grew their own food, made their own clothes and were self-sufficient.  We have lost much of this resourcefulness.  

We had a wood-burning stove installed in our living room this summer - the reason?
Last winter was so cold here that many people had burst pipes and their heating failed.  Thanks to our wood burner I am satisfied that even if our electricity fails and the pipes freeze we will still have heat and a means of cooking.  Did you ever wonder how you would feed your family and heat your home if you lost your water and electricity?  No?  Until last year I hadn't either.  

Long range weather forecasters are already predicting lower than average temperatures for this winter.  At the risk of sounding utterly paranoid, I think it's worth considering that our planet has gone through many periods of climate change in the past and we may just be entering another.

I sometimes jokingly call my mother 'Amos' (because she's always the 'prophet of doom').  However, now I'm starting to think there is something to be said for having some bottled water in the basement and some extra tins in the cupboard - just in case things come to a standstill for a while.  Unlike my mother I hope to ensure that some of my tins are within their use-by date though ;)

Disasters happen around the world all too frequently, and we often hear about how life-saving breastfeeding is.  We think it won't happen on our doorstep.  I would argue that we cannot afford to be so complacent.

(The biggest irony of last year's 'deep freeze'?   My wifi worked perfectly.  The phrase 'fur coat and no knickers' springs to mind!)