Jack, Breastmilk-bankers and all:
I was giving a lecture re breastfeeding and infections to a CLC class tonight
and got stumped. A student had a patient with HTLV II who was told by her MD
to pump, freeze the milk X 24 hrs, then thaw it and feed it to her infant (in
order to kill the virus!). The student thought that woman may have been on
some kind of study. I have been under the impression that freezing kills WBCs
but not necessarily viruses, and that only pasturization will reliably kill
viruses. Am I wrong?
Nancy Wight MD, IBCLC
San Diego