Hi all! This is in response to Melissa who asked about the benefits of
breastmilk over ABM for IQ.  I am amused by your post, because your
personal experience supports what we have been saying!  No one is saying
that ABM babies are not smart, or that they have low IQ's, just that
exclusive bf affords higher IQ's.  Your own story supports this!  Imagine
if you had been breastfed that you would have had an IQ equal to your
father-- who was totally bf.  The differences are about 6-10 points from
the studies I have seen, and this is exactly the difference you
describe!  I too was an ABM baby (bf for 6 whole weeks-- lots of
sarcasm)  and have an IQ of 147.  I guess I could have been even smarter
had I had bm for a longer period... hmmm, we'll never know!  I do want to
add that IQ tests were NEVER meant to measure "intelligence" but instead
were developed to identify children with learning deficits in order to
give them extra attention.  Then some yo yo decided we could measure
everyone's inborn intelligence, and "assign" them a life based on their
supposed IQ.    For this reason, I am very unsupportive of standardized
tests, and very untrustworthy of IQ tests especially because there are so
many confounding variables.  Just my .02 on that!

One other thing about contaminants in bm.  Everyone has mentioned the
silliness of using ABM, but no one seems to state the obvious downfall of
using a replacement for moms best.  These formula unless they are "ready
to serve" would be mixed with the same water supply that is most likely
causing the contamination in the mother, and the milk used in these
formulas (even ready to serve) would also have been exposed to the
contaminants.  Am I missing something here? Why doesn't anyone point out
that the contaminants would be just as present (if not more so without
the filtering of mom's system) in the "alternative" that people keep
suggesting may be safer?? Well, if I am missing something, please fill me
in!! Thanks again, and I really LOVE this li*st!

Heidi Murphy