Katie, You wrote,
"Valerie, then explain my first son.  Born at home, never left my side,
not even a bottle in the house, never one bit of formula, fortifier,
cow's milk, nothing nothing nothing but breastmilk until he was 9
months old----and yet, he was allergic to everything, so it seemed.  We
finally narrowed it down to eliminating from my diet until I was vegan
for the first 18 months of nursing."

In my post regarding Neocate,  I was responding to a case in which the infant
(a premie) had been medically diagnosed with a damaged gut.  I believe the LC
had encouraged the mom to exclusively breastfeed because the infant had
during hospitalization gotten human milk fortifiers and/or infant formula.  Did
human milk damage the gut?  No, the gut damage is the response that all newborn
mammals experience when not fed their own species milk.  Thus the problem is
the response of this particular infant to human milk after the damage has
already been done.  Two questions come to mind in this case before we assume that
human milk is causing the problem.  One is the question of how long it takes to
repair a gut that is damaged during the newborn period--and some researchers
believe this is permanent damage--short gut syndrome, etc.  Thus did this mom
wait long enough to see if the problem would get better before resorting to
Neocate.  Second, was this mom's milk supply optimal?  I have seen in my practice
(which I no longer have) that mothers with premies often have milk supply
problems when they finally bring their babies home.  Due to the infant's
hospitalization, pumping, stress, their milk supplies are low.  Was this infant's
"constipation" the result of a low supply?  This in my estimate should have been
the first issue to consider not a mother's diet. Once you blame a mother's milk
for an infant's problem the only resolution in most people's minds is to go
to infant formula.

The infant formula industry realizes that their product is sub-optimal.  Why
else would they continue to change it and try to imitate human milk?  Gut
damage is the problem they have been trying to fix since the 80's.  Probiotics
(which is based on human milk research and with some products using gene
manipulations to imitate human milk) is added to infant formula for this reason.

So how do we explain allergies in the exclusively breastfed infant that was
born at home. I am not sure because there are so many variables.  How do we
define exclusive?  Everyone defines exclusive differently.  According to
scientists at the University of Michigan, "altering intestinal microflora [by
antibiotics] can lead to changes in the entire immune system, which may produce
symptoms elsewhere in the body."  The research at this university correlates the
rise of antibiotics with the rise in allergies and asthma.  They have a list of
causes of leaky gut syndrome from antibiotics, to various foods and beverages,
enzyme deficiencies.  see
http://www.med.umich.edu/health-e_news/july2004/chronhealth.html

I would suggest that our food supplies are awash with antibiotic
residues--particularly meats, poultry, and fish.  In fact various  researchers blame the
rise of antibiotic resistance to foods not drugs--and they do this by looking
at certain genetic markers which trace it back to foods.  We also now have
genetically engineered foods which I suspect changes the gut environment. Their
use of antibiotic resistant markers and supposedly disabled pathogenic vectors
may create a huge change in the gut.

Thus I believe that gut damage to the exclusively breastfed infant may occurr
because either the mother has been on antibiotics (think about the number of
women postpartum who have breast infections and receive antibiotics) and/or
has ingested foods that are contaminated with antibiotics, molds or fungi.  I do
not believe that it is human milk that is the problem,  particularly when
various pharmacetical companies are using genetically engineered human milk
components to treat allergies and asthma (based on human milk research since the
70's)

Is human milk the culprit in allergies and asthma of the exclusively
breastfed infant?  Or has antibiotics and contamination of our food supply with
antibiotics created this problem?
Valerie W. McClain, breastfeeding advocate

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