Lisa,
>Dear Lactnetters, excuse my ignorance, but I was under the impression that a
>mom with CMV provides passive immunity to her infant. Does this occur by
>passage of antibodies  into the milk, IgM if I am not mistaken, or by
>exposure to the virus. Since IgM is the immune component produced in the
>greatest quantity by the infant in the first six months , wouldn't it make
>since that this baby could receive immune system booster benefits from
>mother's milk?

The mother I know (who is keen to educate the public on this condition,
btw) was infected in early pregnancy and therefore passed the virus on
to her baby. The baby was born with active CMV, but received her
mother's milk for the first 4 months and the doctors told us that the
viral titre (?) went down considerably faster than expected in such a
situation. The mother is still pumping, so whatever drops of EBM she can
get, she feeds the baby and it is definitely helping (her milk dried up
due to the difficulties of longterm pumping, and having been unable to
pump for a week when admitted to hospital with a slipped disk). This
baby was not expected to live and she would have been expected to have
had one infection after another. She has had *no* infections.

The mother's milk had no active CMV virus in it (it was tested during
the diagnostic process).

>Wouldn't it
>be theoretically possible for a baby who already has CMV from vertical
>transmission that the immune factors in his own mother's milk  would help the
>baby mount an immune response to the disorder, or does the amount of CMV
>virus isolated from breastmilk pose more of a threat to the infant?

In this case, the baby was already infected, so there wasn't a problem,
but my friend was warned that her body fluids and those of the baby
could pose a threat to other babies and pregnant women. She's had to be
very careful about diaper disposal (the hospital took them away and
incinerated them). I gather that CMV is only really seriously dangerous
when the baby is in utero or to immunocompromised people. Many babies
contract CMV at daycare, but the infection doesn't harm them longterm.
At least, so we've been told. I strongly suspect that the mother's
immune factors do render CMV harmless in breastmilk, but I cannot prove
it.
--
Anna H. Breastfeeding advocate and writer.
http://www.ratbag.demon.co.uk/anna/

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