>The mom is totally off caffeine and decaf anything, wears no
>bra, doing
>lots of lecithin, and uses natural deod (crystal).  I've referred her for
>lymphatic drainage, but she's leary because of her experience with the
>sonographer.

So what's left? My heart goes out to this mother. I mentions Lars Hansen
from Sweden in my earlier post re Immunization. He was also talking about
subclinical mastitis. This is well known in the dairy industry, in fact
there is a simple stain test of the milk to detect it on the spot. He has no
doubt that it exists in humans, and they are researching it in relation to
HIV transmission because, like mastitis, it opens the intercellular spaces
and you can get more risk of viral transmission from the blood. My thought
is, does this mothers with repeated plugs have subclinical mastitis?

The treatment? Apart from the usual, this is where it gets interesting. His
researchers have found that heat treated oats (ingested) have something in
them (a peptide?) which can stop chronic diarrhoea in its tracks. They have
stopped diarrhoea of two years duration. He is interested in it because he
believes it may also have a role to play in treating/preventing(?)
mastitis - and hence might be useful (and cheap!) re reducing HIV
transmission during breastfeeding. This is still experimental, and the oats
they are using are specially heat treated, but he did say that he thought
that regular cooking (ie porridge) might be just as effective. Note - this
is for eating, not a poultice.

If oats otherwise do no harm, they might be worth trying. In the back of my
mind, isn't there a traditional link between oats and breastfeeding? Did
someone notice that the mother made more milk, but was it because the oats
treated her subclinical mastitis?

Ros Escott BAppSc IBCLC
Tasmania, Australia

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