>Does anyone on the net know how long the gut is permeable enough for infants
>to absorb these large molecules directly into the blood stream?  Somewhere I
>recall the number 6 months--is this correst?

I've had debates with the nutritionists here on campus -- they claim gut
closure at 4 months, but that doesn't explain how cows' milk protein goes
across the gut in the adult mother and gets into her breast milk, which we
know does happen.  Anyone know more about this?


Marie Schulte writes:
>I don't know a lot about allergies, but I have a friend in Evanston, IL whose
>husband(bottle fed) and son(Bfed until over 4 yrs) both have a lot of
>allergies and asthma type problems. The husband has had terrible problems for
>years and sees a well known allergist. When my friend's son started showing
>signs of similar problems at age 3, they took him to see this allergist. The
>allergist asked if the child was exclusively Bfed! My friend (who is a
>LLLLapplicant) was blown away by the thought, but the doctor said that some
>families with lots of bad allergies have been reccommended to Bfeed
>EXCLUSIVELY until about age 5! I thought that it was cool that there was an
>MD reccommending Bf so highly . Has anyone else heard of this type of allergy
>avoidance strategy?


Given all the pediatricians who insist that babies simply can't live without
solids past 6 months of life, I'm very surprised to hear this.  How does
this doctor suggest that women keep up their milk supply for this long?
What about iron status in the baby?  I knew a mother in Mali in 1982/83 who
kept a retarded child alive on breast milk alone until he was just over
three years of age.  But he was severely malnourished and so weak he could
not stand up by himself.  He died when weaned onto homemade formula and
food.  I know many women on LactNet and parent-l have no introduced solids
until over 1 year of age and their babies did fine, but how likely is it
that a child could do well on breast milk alone until the age of 5?

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Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.                         email: [log in to unmask]
Anthropology Department                               phone: (409) 845-5256
Texas A&M University                                    fax: (409) 845-4070
College Station, TX  77843-4352