Although I have been lurking for quite a long time, I now want to share my
experience with you. My daughter was fully breastfed with 4 months, where
her brothers (then 3 and 5 years old) got full-blown chickenpox. She only
developed 5 spots, probably because of my immunity (I am sure I had
chickenpox). However, when she was nine, she developed an herpes zoster. As
a MD I had always associated herpes with old and immunodeficient people, and
thought it was very painful and nasty, but now I saw she had absolutely no
trouble with it, almost no pain and the disease passed very soon. I for
myself think, that the immunity she got from me was not enough to irradicate
the virus completely, so she had it with her and on one moment of relative
immunodeficiency (she was tired, because she was probing very hard for a
musical), the virus could again take over. Now she had the chance to fight
it herself, and I believe she now has a (lifelong?) immunity against the
varicella virus. Has anyone had the same experience? Perhaps this is
interesting to share.
Many greetings from the Black Forest (Germany) which now looks very black
(rain!) indeed.
Elien Rouw, Dutch MD in Germany
Arbeitsgemeinschaft Freier Stillgruppen, breastfeeding support group

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