At 07:03 PM 10/2/2005, you wrote: >Wise Ones, > >On another list I'm on, someone recently said that breastfeeding an >adopted child does not provide immunological benefits. That does not make >sense to me, but then I'm not an expert in the field either. Any comments >or information to enlighten me? Julia, I'm sure that others on this list will offer you support for this declaration's not making sense to you. In 2004 at ILCA a speaker--I think that it was Miriam Labbok, MD--told us that in a developing country when a mother dies, other women in the community feed the infant until someone establishes a milk supply to support the baby's health. She said that those infants have stronger immune systems than others in the community because of the benefit from all of the different women's milk and health experiences. Human milk passes immunity to the suckling infant and begins the process of her developing her own immune system. Having given birth to the infant is not a prerequisite. It is amazing how easy it is to declare the many aspects of breastfeeding as deficient in protecting infants. Those false declarations circulate quickly and feed a lack of trust in the miracle of an infant mammal feeding at its mother's breast. Patricia Gima, IBCLC Milwaukee, Wisconsin *********************************************** 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(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html