With all the recent questions about antibodies in milk, I started
musing.  And it occurred to me that all these health professionals who
are telling mothers that they must not breastfeed because they have in
their blood antithyroid antibodies, antiplatelet antibodies, anti D
antibodies (Rh incompatibility), anti DNA antibodies and all the rest;
who really believe, perhaps, that these antibodies which don't get into
the milk, which would be present in milk (but are not) in such low
concentrations they couldn't do anything, which would be destroyed in
the baby's gut if they did get into the milk, could cause harm to the
baby; that all these health professionals, I say (this is sentence
structure from 19th century--I just read Vanity Fair by Thackery), would
also be the first to say that the antibodies which *do* appear in the
milk (SIgA) offer the baby absolutely no protection against diarrhea,
ear infections, sepsis, respiratory tract infections...

Jack Newman, MD, FRCPC