Dear Dr Jack When you are right you are right! I think that there has been enough research to show that in a moderately malnourished mother her milk supply and its nutrient quality is still maintained. Isn't breastfeeding as a physiological process just marvellous! However in the developing country scenario, some of these women are severly malnourished and their ability to stay healthy,function and care for their children is greatly reduced. Ultimately their ability to reproduce and/or breastfeed will also be compromised. One has only to look at the tragic pictures of starving women in Ethiopia and the subsequent infant mortality rate to see this. Often it is an insidious process. My point is that one needs to correct the maternal situation rapidly, so things do not detoriate to this extent. Do not blame the naturally progressive infant situation on breastfeeding. After all who is going to sustain a bottlefed baby with a with a dead mother. There is also this tendency to look at child and infant nutritional status in developing countries and then propose that because there is malnutrition it is due to breastfeeding not being enough. Often one only needs to look closely at the breastfeeding stats and it becomes apparent that the situation is as it is because breastfeeding is not being done enough. Couple this with poor weaning practices and you have a recipe for disaster. Kind Regards Mandy O'Reilly IBCLE nurse midwife *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html