In terms of nutrition, it's a commom mistake to cross-reference mothers 
in extreme environmental crisis, and those with eating disorders.  
However, the cross-reference is of extrememly limited use.

Mothers who are emergency situations, even in sustained deprivation, 
have usually had perfectly adequate and healthy diets prior to the 
emergency, and most go into the emergency with body fat and a desire to 
eat everything they get their hands on.  They fight for every calorie, 
and will digest anything with protein and fats, such as insects and raw 
eggs, in order to provide themselves, and their babies, with whatever 
nutrition they find.  The depravation is usually short lived in the 
sense that they will fight out of it as soon as they possibly can.  
Further, in most cultures, the pregnant and breastfeeding women will get 
first shares of whatever can be found.

A mother with an eating disorder, may have been in nutritional deficit 
for most, or all, of her adult life.  She will often have no fat 
reserves in her body whatsoever, and is continuing the inbalanced eating 
with the baby.  She is most definately not scraping up as much protein 
and fat as she can, from whatever source she can, in order to keep 
herself and her baby in sound order.  And has been previously stated, 
will most likely not be feeding constantly.  In short, there can be 
serious concerns on nutrition with a mother in the clutches of a severe 
eating disorder, that do not apply, in general, to mothers in enforced 
deprivation. 

This is one area where we can sometimes be a touch complacent - as 
breastmilk will do so much, on so little.  However there is a point 
where you're not looking at what can be done in order to keep a baby 
alive in the midddle of a year long drought, and instead looking at what 
on earth can be done with a mother who has been effectively starving 
herself for several years without a break, and who is maintaining that 
pattern with the infant.  There are serious concerns for any infant who 
has a mother with no fat reserves, and who is not ingesting any fats 
whilst pregnant and/or breastfeeding. 

Morgan Gallagher

heather wrote:
>
> I think the biological evidence that an eating disorder *per se* will 
> affect the breastmilk is pretty small. We know adequate breastmilk is 
> produced by mothers in extraordinarily deprived circumstances.  It's 
> far more likely to be a behavioural effect, as discussed here, with 
> mothers deliberately restricting access to the breast because of 
> wanting to control the baby's intake. 

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