Recent discussion on whether artificially mothers are passing on
their allergies sent me searching for an obscure article I came
across a few years ago.  It was a review of a PhD thesis which
studied the effects of drinking milk from another species on the
immune and allergy status of mothers and their children.

Dr Collins demonstrated that the antibodies produced by cows against
the allergens that abound in their habitat (such as pollens, moulds
and mites) survive to be present in the milk we buy, and also
survive passage through the gut.  He did not mention ABM, which is
more processed.  He postulated that when humans drink cow's milk
they intercept these immunological messages from cow to calf and
misread them, resulting in a disturbed immune response such as
allergy.  This may be more likely to happen in infancy when our
immunological computer is being programmed.

He studied rabbit consumption of mouse antibodies and found that 1)
if you feed rabbits mouse antibodies directed against a specific
antigen, the rabbits make anti-antibodies; 2) anti-antibodies cross
the placenta; 3) anti-antibodies are found in the mother rabbit's
milk; 4) the immune response of the offspring differs from that of
the control rabbits in a way that suggests allergy.  While human
studies have not been done, Dr Collins was inspired by the lack of
allergy he observed in Papua New Guinea where prolonged
breastfeeding has been the norm for generations.

Having anti-antibodies to allergens in your system is like having
the allergens themselves.  They encourage an antibody response then
take up the binding sites. An allergy is basically a poorly
regulated or inappropriate immune response.  If all this is true, it
means that mothers exposed to cow milk (is there a crucial age??)
may be passing on their allergies through anti-antibodies via the
placenta and breastfeeding.  One can only hope that the cycle will
be broken in a generation or two if we stick to human milk for human
babies.

Of course this is not the only allergy transfer mechanism.  My 10yo
has inherited his father's pollen allergy.  They even started on the
same day this year, despite being in different states.  Maybe Kathy
Auerbach was right about Australian men and nursing.

Ros Escott B.App.Sc(OT), IBCLC