Betsy, concerned, writes: << In the recent posts, as opposed to some in the last two months, I don't seem to be reading what I thought was a balance...that even though these toxins are present, there are still elements of breastmilk that protect against some of the very problems these pollutants create. >> I think it's broader than that. That is, not breastfeeding your kids may actually benefit them in some small ways, and it sounds like we don't have enough data to know for sure whether, say, Betsy's son's visual-motor problems might have been aggravated, or caused, or made more likely by contaminants in her milk. Maybe yes. But there would have been lots of other problems that she could have bought by not bf -- all the cognitive deficits, health problems, increased risks of everything from Crohns to leukemia, etc, that we all know about. If I understand the points that Sandra and Annelies and others are making here, they could be summed up by saying: On balance our children are better off breastfed. But they are not quite as much better off as they would be if we lived in a cleaner world. That's on a population wide basis; individual cases are unknowable. As parents all we can do is play the averages and do what is overall best for kids overall, and tailor that for our individual kids as data about that individual child becomes available, and not kick ourselves for what we can't help, when we've done the best thing on balance. fwiw. Elisheva, NYC *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html