To Diane Wiessinger, Thank you for the compliation of the *why I bf* stories. I too found the answers interesting. I never answered with the first go 'round, but my reason for breastfeeding was because my husband and I hardly ever ate any thing out of a can...so, the thought of feeding a newborn canned stuff was unthinkable . Unthinkable becasue I just never thought to do anything but breastfeed. Then I went to a pediatrician (with my very young but exclusively breastfed infant)and was told that exclusive breastfeeding was too stressful for women. He actualy said that he knew from his years of practice that women who never used formula ended up physically abusing (rough handling, throwing etc) their baby from the stress. It was a really long talk that he delivered across an enormous glossy wooden desk. I was sitting there with my first child and paying big bucks for his services. Before I went back for the next *well baby* check I mixed up a bottle of formula and fed my daughter (she was about a month old) and fed her this stuff - needlessly - against my husband's protests. After I was an LLL applicant I read journal articles that were required (at that time) and learned that babies fed ANY milk other than human milk were regarded by some researchers as partially breastfed. The level of health shown by bar graph in an article entitled Breastfeeding Second Thoughts showed a marked decrease for the partially breastfed group compared to the exclusively breastfed group. Well, the next four of my children were exclusively breastfed. My oldest is now a sophomore at Sonoma State University and repeatedly makes the Dean's List despite her limited exposure to ABM. I still think that her exposure triggered many unusual episodes of cyclic vomitting that did not start until after she was fully weaned from the breast. She stopped breastfeeding when she was 6 weeks shy of 4 years of age. And then when she was nearly five she would have these vomitting episodes. Very severe, and her electrolytes would become imbalanced. Scary. Her Pediatrician ( a different doc that the newborn health care practitioner) said that he felt the extended breastfeeding had allowed her to tolerate whatever the trigger was for these episodes. We eliminated cow's milk from her diet (using fresh goat's milk - kept very cold from milking) and her episodes declined and vanished. She does not have any intolerances now. One person e-mailed me about a similar small exposure to ABM with only one of their children and that child's possible resulting health problems. Does anyone recall any research that I may have missed that directly relates to incidents like this? Citations Please, and thanks in advance. Paula Bermingham, IBCLC WIC Breastfeeding Coordinator Lake County, CA