I had a Mom at our LLL meeting this week ask a very interesting question.
With her permission, I am asking the experts here. What do you all think?
Here it is:
>>Also wanted to ask you about the antibody thing again. The question is:
antibodies are transferred through breastmilk, and help the baby's immune
system fight off diseases. Does this also stimulate the baby's immune
system to make memory (long-term immunity) to those particular diseases, or
does it only protect from infection until the baby weans? I realize it is a
little more complicated, because often the baby and mom will be challenged
by the same pathogen and so the baby will launch their own immune response
boosted by mom's antibodies. But if baby gets antibodies from mom for
something that baby hasn't been directly exposed to, is this a short term
or long term immune boost?>>
So does breastfeeding provide long term immunity or only temporary/short
term immunity? We know about the long term benefits, but how does that
relate to immunity specificly?
Thanks for any help?
Cristina

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