I am a lurking lacnetter from New Zealand. I am also a LLL leader. 
New Zealand is where the asthma and breastfeeding research has originated from. It was on the news last night. LLL was interviewed for a brief time, which the LLL mum pointed out that 26 years ago (that is the length of the study) not many Mothers were breastfeeding at all. I watched the late night news later on which they had an interview with the scientist who conducted the research. After pointing out the conclusions from his research (that bf increases the rates of asthma- sorry can't remember the statistics, though they were very convincing) he then went on to say that this isn't enough reason to give up bf and then named quite a few positive medical reasons for bf (though he didn't mention any of the non-medical reasons) though at the end he said that bf can't be seen as possible preventive to asthma and allergies anymore.
Apparantly the length of a breastfeeding Mum on the study was classes as 4 weeks or more. When questioned weather this is long enough he said that there were a few Mothers who exclusively fed for longer but the group was to small to be seen as enough to make a scientific conclusion. 
This study is a joke!!  4 weeks is really not long enough to base such a important study on. 
LLL conference is next week, so I am interested in what discussions we will have about this.]
Jackie Wheeler 

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