Jacqui,
Thanks for sharing your experience. I will keep in mind what you said about
fevers and tube surgery.
My third child is 11 months old and we are going through her ninth cold and
third ear infection. Although my two sons (not school aged yet and at home)
have had few ear infections, my younger son is more prone to colds. So when
dd gets sick, her "partner in slime" (aka my second son) does too. My
firstborn also catches it but he's really not affected by it much. The
younger two definitely have a more protruded forehead and cheekbones, which
I think explains why they react so differently to the same cold. They were
all exclusively breastfed up to 6 months and continued on past their first
year. So I believe there is a multiplicity of factors that provide the right
environment for that bacteria to grow in the middle ear.
I console myself that although we've been through so much illness recently,
my kids didn't catch the flu, the rotavirus, the norovirus nor the other
really nasty bugs that circulated around here this past winter.

Warmly,
Renata


On 6/16/07, [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>
> In a message dated 6/15/2007 3:47:38 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
> [log in to unmask] writes:
>
> Research  shows that bottlefeeding increases the incidence of ear
> infections.
> But,  what increased the risk of those ear infections- the ABM or the
> positioning  while being bottlefed, or the pooling of the liquid in the
> baby's
> mouth, which  occurs anyway, even while being fed EBM?
>
>
>
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> hi!
>
> purely anecdotal here, but:
>
> if it's any reassurance or consolation to you, i just wanted to let
> you  know
> i am coming to be tempted to believe the head shape and  size/shape of the
> eustachian tubes has more or as much to do w/ it as  what we feed our
> babies!
>
> mine have all been exclusively bf'ed - never even had a pacifier or
> artificial nipple of any kind even once - and our 3rd son had NINE
> ear  infections in
> a year ! (and we don't give them cow's milk at all, ever in their  entire
> lives and they don't start solids until the 2nd half of the 1st yr -
> so  it's not
> dairy). since my babies sleep through the night pretty much from
> birth,  he
> wasn't doing a lot of night or side-lying nursing by any stretch of the
> imagination.
>
> my ped says many ethnicities are more prone to ear infections based  on
> the
> shape of the head (we are such a mix i don't even know which
> ethnicity  would
> be the culprit so i blame my husband's side on general principals   ;-)
> )
> and the fact that certain shapes tend to block or bend the  tubes a bit
> more
> until growth spurts help open them up later.
>
> we waited as long as we could before surgically intervening w/ ds #3 but
> he
> began to have higher fevers w/ each infection and just before he turned 2
> started having seizures. we got tubes in his ears and i now feel guilty
> for  not
> having done it sooner, it has made all the difference in the world. my 4th
> baby had an ear infection by 2 weeks old !! (also slept through the night
> since
> birth and had nothing but the breast) but she was born at christmas and my
> school aged children had colds, so in her case i'm thinking bacteria +
> that
> newborn football shaped head helped cause hers. but she's never had
> another
> since and she's 18 mos now!
>
> and my 1st 2 never had any at all. my 2nd two are definitely more  chicken
> mcnugget-headed (yes, this is my diagnosis based on my vast
> medical  repertoire
> - lol) while my 1st two are almost perfectly round headed. as i  mentioned
> before, we have almost never done any side lying nursing or night  nursing
> so i
> just don't think pooling is a factor at all (for us, anyway) and
> my  babies are
> always worn or held so there have been no outside influences on
> their  head
> shapes that i might be curious about (ie, no plagiocephaly). good luck
> to  you
> in avoiding ear infections   - your baby is lucky to have such a  diligent
> and
> concerned mama!
>
> ~jacqui gruttadauria, bsw
> near detroit, michigan
>
>
>
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-- 
Renata Mangrum, MPH, RD.
http://nurturingnotes.blogspot.com

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