"Baby's saliva triggers mom's immune system? Sorry, that's a legend, although
it would be "nice" if the system worked that way. It doesn't, however."

Hi, Linda.
       Are you sure about this being a legend?  I don't have the reference,
but I was sure that I had read something in the past 2-5 years (sigh, I lose
all track of time) that said that the breast can actually manufacture
antibodies, in response to germs in the baby's saliva that enter the breast through the
nipple pores during feeding, before the mom's "body" immune system begins to
make these same antibodies as a response to having been exposed by the baby.
Now that seems to be an awkward sentence, so let me try to put it another way.
       Baby spends the day with grandma.  While with grandma, someone comes
up and sneezes on baby, who has now been exposed to a germ that mom hasn't been
exposed to, because she wasn't there.  As those germs in the baby begin to
multiply, they are present in the saliva and can then trigger the breast to form
and put appropriate antibodies in the milk right then.  The antibodies show
up in mother's breast before they show up in her bloodstream, showing that the
antibodies were actually a response to baby's saliva rather than mom's immune
system responding to a new germ when baby sneezes on her.
       Did I make all this up?  Has anyone else read this?
       Dee







Dee Kassing, BS, MLS, IBCLC
Collinsville, Illinois, in central USA

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