Linda had written:

> "The baby's mouth, hands, nose, etc., can transfer bacteria and viruses to
> mother's skin, mouth, respiratory tract, etc., --  and then the mother's
> system reacts. The saliva-through-the-nipple part is the myth. Think about the
> physiology of milk flow. How would the saliva or pathogens get INTO the breast?
> By swimming upstream, up the ducts?  The milk flowing outward is a powerful
> force to cleanse the breast. The baby's saliva might get into
> mother's mouth quite easily, or onto her hands, etc. But almost certainly
> not by swimming upstream through the milk."
>
> I would have thought that as well, Linda, until last spring in New Mexico
> where I saw Peter Hartmann's ultrasounds of the milk ducts that are deep to the
> areola. The human milk fat globules are actually visible via the ultrasound.
> They had latched the baby on to one breast and put the transponder on the
> other breast. You can see that the milk is streaming forward with the MER, but
> then on the side opposite to where the baby is attached, you can see that the
> flow reverses and the fat globules start to stream upward back into the
> breast -- at a rate/speed that seems to be about the same as the outward flow.
> (So I assume it's not the fat globules just beginning to float upward.)
>
> I always balked at the concept of germs going up through the ducts, but they
> are much smaller than some components of human milk and I would guess it's
> not in the realm of impossibility. What I do think is that with all the
> protective factors in milk that the germs would most likely not fair well when
> mixed with the milk within the ducts.
>
> We've been taught that colostrum is in part composed of sodium and chloride
> derived from plasma, as well as immunoglobulins and lactoferrin and that
> during the colostral/transitional days there is a lack of tight junctions between
> the epithelial cells of the alveoli  -- the paracelluar pathway. The tight
> junctions are established and the milk becomes 'mature' milk. Were germs to
> gain access through to the ducts and if it's after the first two weeks when the
> epithelial cells lining the alveoli would then have tight junctions and no
> gaps between them, I can't see that germs could come in contact with the WBCs
> lurking in the stroma of the breast. If the mother were to have mastitis the
> tight junctions may be disturbed (and during weaning).
>
> Mardrey Swenson LLLL DC IBCLC


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