>Yes, we've been hearing for a while that peanuts can be an allergen, and
>that peanut oil is in a popular nipple cream etc  I've also had a couple of
>mums whose babies appeared to show a sensitivity when their mothers ate
>peanuts and one of my friends' brothers died (in the US) of an anaphylactic
>reaction to peanuts.
Peanuts are eaten all year round by the indigenous population,
But clearly the large majority
>of the population consume large quantities of peanuts without any apparent
>ill effects.  Now, isn't this strange?  Perhaps someone can explain ..

There are many traditional foods that historically haven't caused
sensitivity or allergies in the people, but that are now creating many
problems--peanuts, dairy products, wheat, corn, etc.  I believe that, in the
US at least, we are reaping the effects of two generations of artificially
fed infants, with accompanying unsound health practices. These people are
growing up and reacting to substances they injested as infants, and even
later in their lives because of damage to their systems as infants. A person
who was artificially fed does not come to foods (her entire lifetime) the
same way as one who was exclusivily breastfed for a healthy length of time,
with the accompanying nurturing.

An example of this lifelong effect is a part of the Framingham study in
Massachusetts, which has followed a large group of men for 60+ years now.
One discovery is that if a man were breastfed for only three months he was
able to eat high cholesterol foods throughout his life without clogging his
arteries.

The mother who was fed artificial baby milk (or some homemade concoction)
will process foods differently, and her infant, though fully breastfed may
react negatively to those foods.  I don't know how many generations of
exclusive breastfeeding it will take to reverse the damage to our
population, though I do hold out hope that it can be done.  My daughters
will not be in that group because the 28-year-old had plenty of abm in the
five days we were in the hospital, and the 24-year-old possibly did to, even
though I was there for only 36 hours.  They both have dairy sensivities, the
older one more severly. But perhaps if they avoid the substances they are
sensitive to during their pregnancies and while breastfeeding they could
heal the damage, and their children could return to seeing foods as allies
and not enemies.

Pam mentioned the peanut oil in some nipple creams.  I believe that anything
that goes into an infants mouth for the first few weeks has a high potential
for sensitizing, and some substances are more of a threat than others.

I worked with a mom (abm-fed) who had a lot of allergies as did all of her
family.  Her infant, very colicky, was sensitive to many foods in the
mother's diet, and after taking liquid vitamins beginning at four weeks,
developed a severe allergy to all petroleum products! Her many allergies
weren't discovered until she was one year old.  She could tolerate only
about 11 foods, (some rare) and these not every day or reactions would
begin.  With excellent testing procedures it was discovered that if the
child ate carrots, which she tolerated rather well, from a plastic plate (or
that had come in a plactic bag) she would have a reaction within minutes.
They had to rid their home of every man-made product--carpeting, picture
frames, furniture coverings, tape holders...  (Just look around your room
and see what would be left if you removed everything that is petroleum
based--plastic, polester, lucite, even your computer that brings the beloved
Lactnet.)

Moms, in the U.S. are told to give their breastfed babies vitamins, ususally
with flouride, "just in case" and "it can't hurt."  Or the infant is given a
pacifier made of a foreign substance from the day she is born in most
hospitals. So many practices that were developed during the abm era are
commonplace and go unquestioned, especially by those who don't yet trust
breastmilk and its nurturing capabilities.

There is probably much dis-ease around us that is caused by this foreign
invasion that we don't connect to our messing up a working system.  Most
babies don't develop a serious allergy to petroleum products from injesting
vitamins in synthethic oils, but to this little girl it is a 100% risk.  And
we don't know what another child (or adult) may suffer from because of such
practices.

So, (this post is much longer than I intended) the food isn't the
culprit--dairy, wheat, peanuts,--it is our lack of respect for nature's
perfect system of infant feeding.  And we brave souls are trying to correct
a lot of unhealthy practices, and asking the moms we work with to trust a
process whose full effects won't be known for a lot of years, if ever.  And
if I want to be generous to the physicians (which I don't often want to be),
they are trained to trust the intelect and what they can understand.  We are
asking them to trust "nature's perfect system of infant feeding" , much of
which isn't "understood." But parents can't wait until the medical
establishment understands it all, this baby will be an infant only now.  And
we have to keep teaching and teaching and teaching.

A favorite quote of mine is "The most important decisions in life must be
made before all of the facts are in."

Patricia Gima, IBCLC
Milwaukee