Lynda Lilienfeld <

> >  A colleague who runs a well baby clinic has been threatened by a
> >  Paediatrician that he will have her clinic closed down if she ever tells
> >  another mom to use breastmilk in her baby's eyes as that is a sure way to
> >  spread CytomegaloVirus.
The pediatrician is therefore asserting these statements to be true:
a) the symptoms of CMV in a healthy breastfed baby are severe enough to 
merit extreme caution in handling breastmilk around infant faces;
b) the probability of an infant or child getting exposed to CMV by any 
other route are extremely small, so that the spread of the disease from 
mother to child can be contained simply by withholding this treatment;
c) the likelihood of an infant getting milk accidentally splashed in its 
eyes anyway at some feeding in the first two years is almost nonexistent.

If the pediatrician is wrong on any one of these three counts, his 
argument lacks support. If, as the Group for the Study of Maternal and 
Infantile Cytomegalovirus Infection in Beijing concluded this May, 
postnatal CMV infection has "no significant impact on the health and 
development of infants," his concern may possibly be overstated. 
Regardless of what we conclude about (a), however, there are still (b) 
and (c) to deal with. They must both be true in order for the 
pediatrician's argument to be sound.

Common sense argues against all three.

(P.S. Even a study in which CMV-positive breastmilk was fed to 30 
premature babies, giving rise to three asymptomatic infections, 
concluded, "CMV infections transmitted via breast milk feeding did not 
have much impact on preterm infants in our institutes." Pediatrics. 2003 
Jun;111(6 Pt 1):1333-6.)

Arly Helm, MS, IBCLC


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