Someonent in the following link to an article, suggesting that the typical facial characteristics of Down Syndrome are the result of bottle feeding: Subject: interesting article on oral-motor development http://www.kidscanlearn.net/down.htm As the mother of a child with Down Syndrome, now 18 years of age, breastfed for 4 months and then bottle-fed with formula, and having known many many children over the years with DS, some of whom breastfed just fine for more than 2 years, I have to say, that I think this article is completely inaccurate. Conductive hearing loss due to fluid buildup in children with Down Syndrome is usually due to the tiny size of the Eustachian tubes, not to otitis media. Many children with Down Syndrome have hearing loss until they get tubes, without ever having an ear infection. Peter, for example, got his first set of tubes at age 2.5 years, and his second set at 45 years, which are still in place 14 years later because his Eustachian tubes never got big enough for the tubes to fall out on their own. He seldom had ear infections, and only when he was older, long after the days of bottles. Children with Down Syndrome tend to have many upper respiratory infections because they have crummy immune systems, whether or not they are breastfed. Their adenoids often don't resorb by adolescence the way they do in most people, and can become chronically infected, leading to what we always called "green slime disease" -- green snot coming out the nose from sinus infections. Removal of the tonsils and adenoids in adolescence will often put an end to chronic upper respiratory infections in children with Down Syndrome. High narrow palate in children with Down Syndrome is the result of the two sides of the palate being of normal size, while the rest of the face is smaller. The result is that when the originally upright sides are folding down to meet in the midline, they "run into" each other sooner than they should. Imagine a drawbridge, where each side of the drawbridge is 10' long, but the bridge is only 15 feet wide. As the two sides come down, they meet up in the air, instead of where they should to make a flat or slightly arched road service. Like this: /\ instead of ___ . In some ways, this is just the opposite of a cleft of the hard palate, where the two sides are too short, so they come down all the way to horizontal, but fail to meet in the middle, like a drawbridge with a 3' gap in the middle. Like this: _ _ instead of __ Physical midline defects of all sorts are typical of children with Down Syndrome, ranging from high palates to tracheo-esophageal fistula, to heart defects, duodenal atresia, and small genitalia. Children with Down Syndrome often have normal sized tongues, but small mouths, which is why their tongues protrude. It has nothing to do with bottle-feeding, you can see it in photographs of minutes-old newborns. Breastfed children with Down Syndrome have similar facial characteristics to bottle-fed children with Down Syndrome. And so on, and so forth. It's a nice idea that if these kids were just breastfed, they wouldn't have all these oral-facial physical issues, but it just isn't true. All the facial characteristics described as typical of Down syndrome are due to the presence of an extra 21st chromosome (3 instead of the normal 2), leading to all sorts of interesting physical differences, including tiny cute ears and a big gap between the first and second toes. Kathy Dettwyler, Ph.D. Proud mother of Peter Hunter Dettwyler, XY +21 _________________________________________________________________ Frustrated with dial-up? Lightning-fast Internet access for as low as $29.95/month. http://click.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200360ave/direct/01/ *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html