>From: "Linda Volkovitsch, Nursing Mothers Counselor" <[log in to unmask]> Does anyone have information on the need (or lack thereof) for >vitamins for a healthy 17 month old who is still primarily breastfeeding? >Baby nurses about 8 times a day, some snacking of crackers when feels like >it, but diet is still primarily breastmilk (95% or so). Pediatrician is >upset about nutritional deficiencies of vitamins/minerals. This child is either consuming VAST quantities of breastmilk or is not growing to potential : or this mother has super-enriched breastmilk, much higher in protein and calories than usual. (Milk does vary.) It's meaningless to give an age of a child without giving a full history of growth data. Knowing nothing about growth, I wouldn't be worried about vitamins and minerals alone as the paed is, so much as about simple protein-calorie malnutrition. The usual protein levels of breastmilk are not enough for optimal growth in the second year. Kids can sometimes compensate by staying smaller and in proportion, or guzzling vast quantities (and having lots of fluid waste) but often they get increasingly inactive as a way of conserving energy. There are studies all the way back to the 1920's saying the outcome of exclusive breastfeeding past 12 months can be very poor, including intellectual deficits. Not something to fool with: WHY doesn't this child eat? There's usually a reason. What's the family history of food intolerance and allergy? I would always investigate such cases fully before feeling comfortable with supporting an almost exclusive breastfeeder at 17mos. As for green milk: in resting breast fluid of non-lactating women, this was associated with cholesterol epoxides in the only study I know of that looked at colour of such fluid. In the case seen, was this lots of milk,all green orjust one nipple duct/pore that green could be expressed from? I'd suspect different causes in the two cases: some natural or synthetic dyestuff, possibly blue or green in the first. (For orange milk, both carrots and artificial tanning creams can do the trick.) How much animal meat and fat in the diet? Enough to have huge quantities of cholesterol by-products? Grey-green or deep olive green is common/"normal" in cysts in western women, but a lactating breast usually produces enough milk to dilute such colours. I suppose one small cyst near to the nipple could be out of communication with the rest of the ductal system if you're seeing one green ductal product and the rest milk. After lactation all bets are off, especially for smokers: horrid dark colours in resting breast fluid. The breast is an excretory (as well as secretory) organ, after all. TTFN MM