Sandy and All,
First, Sandy Congrats on passing the exam!  Good job!  I know how exciting
that is...I still haven't settled down from my excitement about passong and
I passed 2 yrs ago!

Second, I am not sure if you were responding to my post about breast cancer
but I will respond to yours for clarification.

>may I very respectfully just tell  you that I cringe when I read  what I
consider to be an overly simplified
> version of why there has been an increase in breast cancer? PLEASE don't
> be quick to decide that if only everyone was bfed AND bfed their own
> babies for many years breast cancer would be near nonexistent.

I believe that sometimes an 'oversimplification' may be just what we need to
get people to wake up and say "Oh, yeah!  Duh! That makes sense!"  The
bottom line is that our society has damaged our general health tremendously
by (pushing the use due to percieved superiority) using ABM rather than
continuing our normal mode of feeding - BreastFeeding.  Yes, other factors
come into play, I completely agree, but lack of breastfeeding is the one of
the most noteable factors (imho).  In the Lancet Journal there was a study
just published this week (Thank you Pat Gima for sending that to PPLC!)
about this subject.  I have copied and pasted it into a following message.
It is a very good article and makes a lot of sense to me.

Now I will say that I do NOT believe that if ALL moms BF and ALL babies were
BF that breast cancer would become near (or totally) nonexistant.  That
would be great, but not logical.  I also believe that we can tell moms
reliably that BF will REDUCE thier risk of developing breast cancer - I do
not know anyone who has (or would) said that BF would eliminate their risk
of breast cancer.  All of my clients are told to make sure they continue to
do their breast self-exams while lactating because the risk is still there
simply given our society's culture.  All the carcinogens, lack of BF, air
pollution, poor diets, etc. all contribute to our general state of getting
cancer from darn near everything including breathing.  When moms ask me
about my BF history (and they do) and how it relates to breast cancer (which
does run in my family) I tell them that I breastfed for a total of almost 9
years (7 years continuously) and I have reduced my risk - not eliminated
it - of developing breast cancer.

Also respectfully submitted...  :)
Warmly,
Jaye Simpson, IBCLC

             ***********************************************

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(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html