Hi Pat, I must admit that this is not the first thing I thought of simply because I think that it's reasonably unlikely that these babies will take to breastfeeding straight off. However, the issue of babies transmitting disease to their mothers is something that I have often wondered about. Does anyone have any knowledge of what the risk might be?? The likelihood of children having HIV and this being unknown is small I would think (as far as adoption from China goes- it is not a real risk- this was where these mothers were going) but Hep B would definitely be a possibility. One would hope that families had been immunised against Hep B. Anyway, what are the possible mechanisms of infection mother to baby and how likely would it be that baby-mother infection would occur, what might increase or decrease risk of transmission? Karleen Gribble Australia > First off I would question the adopted baby's Hep/HIV status :-( There > isn't really any way to tell until back home and get blood tests. Sounds > majorly risky for all concerned, mom, baby and adopted baby. I understand > where the moms' hearts are, but that doesn't mean you have to keep the brain > tucked away. Sincerely, Pat in SNJ *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] 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