Hep C I noticed someone wanting info re Hep C, HIV etc recently. There is very little well conducted research IMO. I had cause to hit the refs last year when a family member was pregnant with no 3 - she's Hep C antibody +. The hosp staff treated her as if she was a (19Century) leper and used the full gowns and gloves bit, special cutlery, isolation etc. They insisted she was appalling for breastfeeding, despite the fact that her husband had contacted all the reasonable sources of info and concluded they were safe. She had contracted Hep (C?) some 20 yrs ago as an errant teenager. Neither of her two children nor husband have antibodies (nor does the now 16mo). They contacted the Sydney Hep C support group, relevant medical experts (selected from referees of major hosps in Sydney), and I provided them with a letter to the Lancet; Ogasawara et al, (341);p561 Feb 27, 1993 saying that in his study of 26 mothers breastmilk - NO TRACES OF VIRUS WAS FOUND OVER A 3-20mo STUDY! I am bursting to see the full paper! Any refs out there? 10 actually carried virus, the rest were antibody +. All of these former mothers had virus in their saliva (no-one wore masks to deal with my relative mind you and for saliva based infection it's probably wise). All of the babies had antibody which gradually disappeared. There is another paper by Thaler et al Lancet:338, July 6 1991;pp17-18 which is disturbing but flawed. 10 mothers - all with multiple high risk factors of HIV etc - which establishes that mothers can give their babies Hep C as it has been before in Thaler et al Lancet 1991(338), 17-18 (which I also think is a bit dodgy - not well enough analysed on the risk factor front). The methods of transmission are not clear in these two papers. ____________ Fees for Lactnet. I didn't see the orig post, but now that I'm sysadmin for parent-l I understand the work it takes. But - could you get a grant for it? Or get some more support out of the hosp, or somewhere? It's a fabulous resource. Or run it as a newsgroup? _____________ Cancer Medication A question just popped up on [log in to unmask] (if you're interested in the address - traffic awfully heavy at present and I'm too busy reading it to fix up the digest) on this medication. Any info appreciated :-) >>>>>>>> A friend of mine will be receiving a single dose of Methotrexate, a cancer med, tomorrow. She has a nursing child age 21 months. She knows she will not be able to bf after receiving the shot, but does not know how long she will have to keep her son off the breast before the med is out of her system. Is anyone familiar with bf and cancer meds? She does not want to wean her son if she only has to stop nursing for a day or two -- he is just not ready. Any info on this would be *greatly* appreciated. Thanks,Pat, [log in to unmask] <<<<< ----------- BTW NMAA made me a Community Educator yesterday :-) I'm too busy doing it to even contemplate counsellor training anymore - no counselling - yay! (is that too much of a cop out?) _______________________________________________________________________ Narelle Clark o o Underfed, underwashed, underslept - but well loved. \ / o o \ / It's great being a parent! ` '` '` '` ' [log in to unmask]