Sarah Berreth shared some interesting information about exclusive
breastfeeding and HIV transmission.

"It is believed that the same
protective mechanisms gained from exclusive breastfeeding that help
prevent diarrheal diseases may also help prevent the transmission of
HIV-1.  Some of these protective mechanisms include; facilitating
enterocyte junction closure of the intestinal mucosal barrier by
decreasing the amount of exposure to dietary antigens and environmental
pathogens, preventing intestinal irritation and inflammation that may be

caused by early introduction of mixed feeding providing a possible open
route for HIV-1 transmission, preventing common infectious
microorganisms form forming gin the intestinal microflora because of the

decreased buffering ability of breast milk which lowers intestinal pH,
favoring the growth of anaerobic lactobacilli and the known immunologic
protective mechanisms may also play a proactive role in preventing the
transmission of HIV-1 from mother-to-child (Smith & Kuhn, 2000)."

In light of the protective benefits of *exclusive* breastfeeding, I am
wondering if anyone else has noticed that babies who are exclusively
receiving mother's milk (and never have a drop of ABM) don't seem to get
thrush/yeast overgrowth as often as babies who received "just a little
formula in the hospital"?

I recently had a client who had a home birth.  The baby lost 15% of her
birthweight in the first 3 days of life and was admitted to a local
hospital for dehydration.  Subsequently the baby ran a fever and
received several different antibiotics as they ran tests to rule out the
cause of the fever.  The physician who attended her homebirth was
adamant about not letting this baby have anything else besides mother's
milk while she was in the hospital.  I followed this client closely for
the next 4 weeks, waiting to see if thrush would develop.  It never
did!!  Mom has a history of vaginal yeast infections.

I wondered if anyone else has seen such remarkable resistance to yeast
overgrowth when the baby was fed solely on the mother's own milk??

Janet Talmadge, IBCLC
Naperville, IL

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