The supplement to Pediatrics, 1996;98(2) Part 2 of 2, is titled:  Best
Articles Relevant to Pediatric Allergy and Immunology.  On pg 321 there is a
ref. and abstract of the wonderful Saarinen and Kajosaari article in Lancet,
1995;346:1065-1069 titled "Breastfeeding as Prophylaxis Against Atopic
Disease: Prospective Follow-up Study Until 17 Years Old.

I quote the reviewer's comments:
"This is one of the most ambitious studies of its kind in terms of length of
follow-up. Surprisingly [Ha, not to us!] even respiratory allergies were
less prevalent in the intermediate and prolonged breastfeeding groups...The
authors speculate that cow's milk sensitization during this period may serve
as a trigger for other sensitizations.  Nevertheless, the differences in the
feeding groups with respect to allergy manifestations at 17 years of age are
difficult to explain."

I was delighted to see this article included in the supplement which will
reach a lot of pediatricians.

There is another really interesting article in Pediatrics itself this month.
Gunn,A. et al, Growth Hormone Increases Breast Milk Volumes in Mothers of
Preterm Infants. Peds, 1996; 98(2):279-282.  A double-blind trial is
described which treated moms of preterms with insufficient milk with human
growth hormone.  Treated moms experienced  a 31% increase in milk
production. Only 4 of 9 of the placebo moms exper."trivial" production
increases.  No adverse effects were seem with hGH treatment in the mothers
or infants.
The authors comment upon the difficulty preemie moms have estab. full
lactation, and on the limited pharmacological assists which rely on "agents
that indirectly raise prolactin levels; however, increasing maternal plasma
prolactin concentrations has not been reliably demonstrated to improve
lactation." p. 279. Apparantly in cattle, administration of bovine growth
hormone significantly increases production in normally lactating cows.  So
this experiment looked for and apparantly found a similar response in humans.




Barbara Wilson-Clay, BS, IBCLC
Private Practice, Austin, Texas
Owner, Lactnews On-Line Conference Page
http://moontower.com/bwc/lactnews.html