To Diane Wiessinger,

Thank you for the compliation of the *why I bf* stories. I too found the
answers interesting.

I never answered with the first go 'round, but my reason for breastfeeding
was because my husband and I hardly ever ate any thing out of a can...so,
the thought of feeding a newborn canned stuff was unthinkable . Unthinkable
becasue I just never thought to do anything but breastfeed.

Then I went to a pediatrician (with my very young but exclusively breastfed
infant)and was told that exclusive breastfeeding was too stressful for
women. He actualy said that he knew from his years of practice that women
who never used formula ended up physically abusing (rough handling, throwing
etc) their baby from the stress.
It was a really long talk that he delivered across an enormous glossy wooden
desk. I was sitting there with my first child and paying big bucks for his
services. Before I went back for the next *well baby* check I mixed up a
bottle of formula and fed my daughter (she was about a month old) and fed
her this stuff - needlessly - against my husband's protests.

After I was an LLL applicant I read journal articles that were required (at
that time) and learned that babies fed ANY milk other than human milk were
regarded by some researchers as partially breastfed. The level of health
shown by bar graph in an article entitled Breastfeeding Second Thoughts
showed a marked decrease for the partially breastfed group compared to the
exclusively breastfed group.

Well, the next four of my children were exclusively breastfed. My oldest is
now a sophomore at Sonoma State University and repeatedly makes the Dean's
List despite her limited exposure to ABM. I still think that her exposure
triggered many unusual episodes of cyclic vomitting that did not start until
after she was fully weaned from the breast. She stopped breastfeeding when
she was 6 weeks shy of 4 years of age. And then when she was nearly five she
would have these vomitting episodes. Very severe, and her electrolytes would
become imbalanced. Scary.

Her Pediatrician ( a different doc that the newborn health care
practitioner) said that he felt the extended breastfeeding had allowed her
to tolerate whatever the trigger was for these episodes. We eliminated cow's
milk from her diet (using fresh goat's milk - kept very cold from milking)
and her episodes declined and vanished. She does not have any intolerances now.

One person e-mailed me about a similar small exposure to ABM with only one
of their children and that child's possible resulting health problems. Does
anyone recall any research that I may have missed that directly relates to
incidents like this? Citations Please, and thanks in advance.

Paula Bermingham, IBCLC
WIC Breastfeeding Coordinator
Lake County, CA