Anna,
I am definitely not an expert here, but one thing that did stick out to
me was the graft vs host issue. I attended a seminar put on by Health
Education Associates a couple of years ago in Los Angeles, and the topic
was "promoting breastfeeding". Among other things, they did a quick run
down on the latest in "advantages of breastfeeding" that included some
statistics on the effects of breastfeeding on transplant situations later
on. The bottom line: having been breastfed as an infant was related to
lower rejection incidences, and having been breastfed AND receiving
donated organ from a previously breastfed individual brought the lowest
risk of organ rejection of all.  I'm not sure how this might work into
your graft vs host issue, but it does stick in my craw to just throw out
breastfeeding. I'm speaking out of my *very* limited knowledge of this
particular situation, however, and I look forward to more analysis from
those more learned than I.

-Lisa

P.S. They gave us the most complete bibliography, pages of tiny print,
and I'm sure the cited studies are on there somewhere! Unfortunately, it
is alphabetized by author and not organized by topic...

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Lisa Marasco, BA, LLLL, IBCLC
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