I know of no mechanism to get that kind of
>feedback directly from the nipple to the mom's immune system.

...yet.

Just wait.  Peter Hartman will offer this to us in a couple of years. The
nipple theory was hypothesized about 30 years ago based on data from an
epidemic in England. And I don't know that it has been thoroughly explored
since that time.

The nipple _is_ a "two way street." Which is an element in the changing
composition of breastmilk as the baby grows and develops. It has been
assumed to be from the saliva transfer, programming the milk to the baby's
daily, weekly, monthly needs. This programming is the basis for  Hartman's
find that an 8 month old infant doesn't take twice as much breastmilk as
she did at 4 months or so. The nutrients are concentrated as needed. The
development of the precise scale has enabled us to see that a baby at the
breast doesn't take greater and greater volume of milk as she grows.

If there can be a "chemical" action of saliva on the composition of
breastmilk, that effect could certainly be transmitted to the circulatory
system, hence the immune system.  Now, many of you know more anatomy than I
do, and my "understanding" may well be questioned.  But I'm betting on this
method of pro-active immune system enhancement along, of course, with
others that we have or haven't explored.

There are so many aspects of the production of breastmilk that we don't
know "yet."  I plan to send Peter this hypothesis and let him have a go at
it. It is exciting that someone is interested in pursuing  these aspects of
our work.

Pat Gima, IBCLC
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
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