Hi Jan, Although I was fairly certain a mothers diet has no effect on
breastmilk calcium levels I checked with a colleague who has done a PhD on
calcium in breastmilk. Her reply is:

Regarding the neonatal hypercalcaemia -
there is no way the mother's diet can affect the calcium concentration of
her milk and her milk will not cause hypercalcaemia in the infant.  The
paediatrician must look at the infant for a cause, and DH said there are
many causes of hypercalcaemia in infants.  Just for your information, the
only way to increase the calcium concentration of milk is to increase the
casein concentration or the citrate concentration.  Both increase from very
low concentrations over the first few days after birth, but after that they
tend to decrease.  There have been no reports of 'hypercaseinaemia' or
hypercitrataemia' ( words I've just invented).  Even if the mother's milk
were high in calcium, the infant gut would not absorb the extra.  Cow's milk
contains relatively huge concentrations of calcium, and formula-fed infants
do not get hypercalcaemia.

Hope this helps

Regards
Cathy Fetherston
Perth Western Australia

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html