Received

Breastfeeding is the natural way of feeding infants and young children. WHO recommends, as a public health measure, exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months and continued breast-feeding up to 2 years and beyond (1). Yet a large proportion of infants worldwide is formula fed (2,3). Of these, the largest majority is fed with powdered infant formula (PIF). In Italy in 1998, an estimated 15 % of newborns were given PIF at discharge, up to 35 % at 2 weeks and 90 % at 5 months (4). A recent judicial inquiry estimated a consumption of about 11.7 kg of PIF per infant in 2004 (5). PIF is not a sterile prod-uct; it can be intrinsically, that is before the tin is opened for use, contaminated with bacteria (6). This has become a concern after the recent increase in the notification of seri-ous cases and outbreaks of disease caused by Enterobacter sakazakii (7). This problem may be even more serious i