Hi all

Kathy Dettwyler's post from Allen Cunningham:

>        Kawasaki disease is another type of vasculitis which is a precursor to
>adult coronary disease and is associated with lack of breastfeeding in
>infancy (Kato, Inoue, Kawasaki, Fujiwara, Watanabe and Toshima, 1992;
>Kawasaki, Kosaki, Okawa, Shigematsu and Yanagawa, 1974).

Just one mom's anecdote on this. I know more about K's disease than I care
to. My son got K's when he was 2--and still breastfeeding. He got his first
ear infection right after his birthday and it went from that to K's. What a
nightmare that included a 5 day stay in the hospital initially for
dehydration (what little he kept down before that came from and through me)
and an overnight in ICU for congestive heart failure (due, ironically, to
the hosp pumping too much fluid in him). We were told of the risk of
coronary aneurisms 6-12 months after the initial bout and so had follow up
echocardiograms for months. A year after we got a letter from his
cardiologist suggesting a "routine" (for him, anyway) aortogram (mini-heart
catheterization) which came out fine. And we have been told to do follow up
echos every couple of years simply because they haven't followed kids long
enough to see what the long term effects of this nightmare might be.

Do I remember that someone said Lancet is available online now? I'd love to
see a copy of that 1992 article.

Obviously bf didn't prevent him from getting the disease, but it may very
well have lessoned the effects. I cannot imagine what that experience would
have been like for either of us had we not been bf at the time. Dan's nearly
14 now and I guess due for another echo this year. So far so good.

Melissa Vickers, IBCLC (who still shutters when I see Kawasaki motorcycles!)
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