Now that we've used Evivo, I wanted to do a follow-up post on what we think. If you didn't see my first post, you can find it here. To order Evivo for your child, visit their website here.
We still love Evivo and are so thankful for their product! Obviously, we have no way to tell if it's working unless we were to get Ever tested, but I trust this brand and their research statistics of a 99% success rate.
Quick recap:
Did you know that 97% of babies in North America are born without the beneficial B. Infantis bacteria? I didn't know that either. But it's true. B. Infantis is a bacteria that is passed from mother to baby during a vaginal birth, but if the mother doesn't have it, the baby won't get it either. Over time, because of the use of anti-biotics, c-sections, etc, the B. Infantis bacteria has disappeared from many women's guts, causing a chain reaction so our babies are no longer born with it, except in rare cases.
Babies who don't receive this bacteria are at higher risk for eczema, allergies, obesity, and diabetes. So, needless to say, it's a very important bacteria. Our overall health almost always stems from our gut, what's on the inside, so if you don't have good bacteria fighting for you on the inside, your health will suffer.
Here's another crazy statistic I didn't include in my last post:
15% of nutrients in breastmilk are wasted if B. Infantus isn't present in the baby's gut! That's crazy! I want my child to get every last drop of nutrients from that liquid gold.
So, once I received the product, I only had to read through the instructions once because it's pretty straight forward. You express 5mls of breastmilk into the provided bowl (you can use a pump, I hand expressed), then mix the probiotic powder with the breastmilk. I mixed for a while because I was trying to get every last bit of powder to dissolve, but I couldn't. There was still some powder left in the bowl, and I was a little bummed but figured it's fine. Then you take the provided syringe and suck up the mixture.
Once you have the mixture in the syringe, you take your baby, make sure they're upright, and place the syringe in their cheek. This is probably much easier with a non-mobile child. Ever immediately decided she didn't like the taste (and I don't blame her), and ran away from me and refused to let me finish. Eventually, I was able to get her to take the rest, but it was no easy task.
Probably the only con I've found to this product is the taste. But, if it tasted good then that would mean there's sort of additive in it and I wouldn't be okay with that. And knowing how beneficial it is for her, I'm willing to put her through a few seconds of suffering for the good of her health.
Overall, we are very satisfied with this product and so grateful that it exists (and that I found out about it before we were done breastfeeding!)