Enfamil TPN?

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I went to a local pharmacy to buy distilled water to make baby formula with. Baby does get breast milk, but not enough for her hungry appetite, so formula it is. Obviously, you don’t drink the water from the tap here, and most everyone including me has water service from one of several providers that deliver bottled water to your home. However, this “drinking water” is purified probably via reverse osmosis (but I’m not totally sure since they don’t report that kind of thing) and I’m not sure how many solutes (good and bad) come along for the ride. I of course know that off-the-shelf distilled water is not sterile nor is it a must for making formula, but I feel better knowing that whatever is in the formula mix is what she gets without worrying about any additional salts, minerals, etc. in unknown quantities. Call me an overprotective geek.

After searching fruitlessly through the aisles, I took a chance and went to the pharmacy counter. I wasn’t holding out too much hope since the lady helping me had enough makeup that I thought she was going to perform in Cirque du Soleil immediately after her shift, all the while smacking gum audibly.

“Do you have any distilled water back here?”
“Yes, would you like 1/2 or 1 liter bottle?”
Success!! I said 1L and the lady disappeared behind the counter. She came back with a glass IV bottle whose label read, “solucion inyectable.” I didn’t scour the fine print to see if it was 0.9% isotonic saline, but I figured it was.
“That’s not what I want, I just want plain distilled water.”
“That is distilled.”
[pause for the insanity of having water with something added called "distilled"--I can make iced tea with distilled water, but it's not distilled water anymore] “Ok, so this has been distilled….but this is for IV use. I just want purified, distilled water–it doesn’t have to be sterile.”
[looks quizzically at me, as if I want to inject non-sterile water into somoene]
“Look, I’m making formula for my baby. I want the purest (not sterile) water possible, without minerals,etc. This [handing bottle back to her] is not what I’m looking for.”
“Of course you wouldn’t make formula with this,” she says taking the bottle back from me, the apparent retard.
“What water would you suggest then?”
[continuing her disdain] “Just use whatever bottled water.”

So there ya go. I had already previously looked in several stores/’pharmacies, and “distilled water” as one would know it in the US in the plain, plastic bottles, does not exist. So far, baby’s done OK with our bottled water (equivalent to Dasani) but I still think such a simple item shouldn’t be so hard to find. Yet another slice of life here.

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P.S. TPN = Total Parenteral Nutrition, or “IV feeding.”