I feel the urge to chime in here with my own observations and opinions,
some of which I'd love to see researched.  First, I think we all agree
there are differences in people, that families have tendencies toward
different types of illness, i.e. Cancer, allergies, ear infections and
such.  To the extent that this is true, we are going to see those
differences played out regardless of whether their children are
breastfed or not, with perhaps a difference in degree.  In other words,
a child from a robustly healthy family may be formula fed and quite
healthy -relatively.  Likewise a child from a family with a history of
allergies may still develop allergies even though he/she was breastfed.
The degree of the illness, or the age at onset though, will probably be
affected.  That is why my second daughter, who was exclusively
breastfed, developed ear infections which eventually landed her with
tubes.  However, her first ear infection was at age 2 1/2, one month
after she weaned!  I have no doubt she'd have had the tubes by 1 year,
instead of 4 years, if she had been formula fed.  She also only required
one set of tubes!  Second, my sil (whose children are not my brother's.
second marriage for both) formula fed her children and, very defensively
told me how healthy they were when I'd made some comment about
breastfeeding at a family get-together, not knowing she hadn't
breastfed.  In the years since that time, I have learned that her
children have problems like extreme allergies, obesity, skin problems
and other things (not to mention her own case of thyroid cancer) which I
guess are considered "healthy" things to have.  My point is that her
kids do have health problems associated with formula-feeding, they have
just become "normal" for children to have.  Finally, I have a theory
that is two-fold.  One part is that, I think breastfeeding makes the
biggest difference at the extremes of life.  The very young child and
the older adult, who are at higher risk health wise, will show more
effect from the poorer nutritional start, as will a person of any age
during illness.

For myself -a formula fed baby- I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome which I
have had for 10 years, since my late 30's when I went through divorce
and entered the workforce about the same time.  I believe stress
precipitated this, and when I compare the health of my siblings and I
against our parents (who were both breastfeed), well we come out
lacking, but in many small ways.  Nothing huge.  (All those small ways,
though, sure can make getting up in the morning a painful experience!)
Part 2 of my theory is that I think the more generations removed we are
from breastfeeding, the worse our health will be.  IOW, my parents were
breastfed, my health wasn't so bad, but it's starting to show now.  If I
also formula-fed my kids, I believe their health would have been worse
than mine has been and so on.  We're interfering with the building
blocks of life and that effect will be multiplied exponentially down
through the generations, IMO.  That's just a theory, but I'd love to see
a research project on that!  Anyone else think along these lines?

Marsha, climbing out of the think-tank for now on a bitter cold day in
Indiana.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Marsha Glass RN, BSN, IBCLC~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mothers have as powerful an influence over the welfare of future
generations as all other earthly causes combined.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~John S. C. Abbot~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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