>i have often wondered about the rate of ear infections that occurred in
>earlier times, i.e., when breastfeeding was the norm (and before antibiotics).

And before cow's milk was introduced to infants. PG

>... but i am wondering why there aren't
>deaf people everywhere, if ear infections were as common eighty years or more
>ago as they are now.

Carol, I believe that ear infections were certainly more rare in those
earlier times before the wide-spread use of non-human milk for infants. And
if the infants were breastfed until appropriate weaning time there would be
small incidence of ear infections and short-lived cases.  Not NO incidence,
but small incidence. Babies who were weaned at 1 year were still quite
vulnerable to infections of all kinds.

Today, breastfed babies do have ear infections and it is usually a baby of a
mother who was, herself, artificially fed as an infant and who is consuming
dairy products.  It is one of the legacies of our 2 1/2 generations of
feeding our infants milk of another species. In the mothers whom I work with
whose babies or children are having ear infections, I suggest a dairy-free
diet for both mom and child.  In 100% of the cases that is the end of the
ear infections.

Kim Hartwick's post alluded to this benefit of eliminating the dairy. Before
the initiation of cow's milk feeding of infants, most women who were
breastfeeding could consume dairy without it resulting in colds and ear
infections in their babies, but it is hard to find a woman today who was
exclusively breastfed for even 1 year.

Some who think they were exclusively breastfed will find out from their moms
that "Oh yes, you were given a couple of bottles in the hospital before my
milk came in," or "You had bottles at night because you were in the nursery."

I'm hoping that if we can return to truly exclusively breastfed infants,
moms will be able to return to eating some dairy as a part of a good diet
without jeapordizing their children's health. But, as we here know, it is
still hard to get an infant to 3 weeks without some artificial milk.

So moms will have to continue to eliminate dairy in their and their
children's diets. And articles like these help us to see clearly that
avoiding ear infections is worth a lot of trouble.



Patricia Gima, IBCLC
Milwaukee

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