A very health conscious mom has read ? heard about
>? drinking her own urine for health benefits. She was drinking up to 6 oz per
>day for 1 week. It seems her baby ( 6 months old) now has signs of some
>dehydration- depressed fontanelle mainly. She tells me that there is a book
>written on the topic but does not have access to it at this time. Any help with
>this one?

I have a book written by popular Australian scientist Karl Kruszelnicki
called "Bizarre Moments in Science" that has a chapter on urine drinking.
In this he mentions that it is a common practice in India and now in
Taiwan, and was mentioned in the Bible. Your urine is also supposed to be
good on the feet to cure blisters! He explains that there is a large amount
of melatonin, from the pineal gland, in urine produced while sleeping.
Melatonin is good for sedation, pain relief, sleep, feeling of 'emotional
balance', increasing visual imagery and feelings of elation. The Indians
recommend drinking mid-stream urine from that voided at 4 am and is good to
help them meditate at that time of day. It is also useful for resetting
your body clock - and he says that scientists are attempting to use it to
develop a drug to help with jet-lag. The yogic texts say that urine from
children is even better - has more melatonin, and explains why they sleep
longer than adults. They recommend that you need to drink your own urine
every day for over a month before you get the full effect. He cites
references for this chapter as:
Scientific American July 1965 'The Pineal Gland' by Richard J Wurtman and
Julius Axelrod, pp 50-60
Medical Hypothesis (1991) 36, 'Melatonin Supplementation from Early Morning
Auto-urine Drinking' by MH Mills and TA Faunce, pp 195-199
New Scientist No.1810, 29 February 1992, 'A Glass of Urine a Day Keeps the
Stress Away' by Gail Vines, p 14
New England Journal of Medicine Vol 327, No.19, 5 November 1992, 'Melatonin
- the Hormone of Darkness' by Robert D Utiger, pp 1377-1379.

I found all this really interesting, but have not managed to convince
myself to try it!

Joy Anderson IBCLC, NMAA Breastfeeding Counsellor
Perth, Western Australia
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