Dear Lactnetters,

Yesterday I received a letter from a WIC participant that was personally
encouraging. After years of being told by certain segments of the lactation
community that I was too technical - this mom said:

"Dr. __________, a  ____________ county physician frequented by many
families, told me in 1996 it was not recommended to breastfeed for more than
three months and cited technical reasons.....That kind of advice is, as this
article a probably a host of others prove, downright dangerous. Perhaps you
can help influence this one and other doctors. Many people are mandated by
their HMO to see a family physician rather than a pediatrician who would
know better."

This mom is originally from Germany. English is her second language and she
very kindly translated most of an article from the German magazine  "Natur",
March 1997. Article entitled, When Children Become Diabetic. (This mom typed
-no word processor- this out for me!) The first  1 1/2 pages is about whey
recovery as allowed by increased technology.

"Medical science now believes to have found one of the determining casues of
disbetes 1 in just this whey powder. Today, the disruption of metabolism is
being traced to "autoimmune processes": the body's immune system attacks
parts of the pancreas and tries to destroy it becasue it mistakenly
considers it a foreign protein, a germ of disease. How does the immune
system arrive at this false and fatal conclusion?

A certain part of whey protein is identical in its surface structure to a
protein agent of the pancreas. Since the protein molecules of whey can
travel through a small infant's permeable intestinal wall the child's immune
system has to react to it and render it harmless. Thus the cells of the
immune system are trained to attack this whey protein and will try to
destroy tha almost identical beta cells of the pancreas which produce  the
vital insulin. The resulting lack if insulin can later lead to diabetes. It
is thought that once the defense mechanism is in place, every intake of whey
is going to casue an attack on the pancreas."

        This mom had come to WIC and heard that she should not give her
infant (breastfed or not ... and hers was - for longer than 3 months despite
the MD advice) cow's milk mixed with cereal. She was encouraged to either
express her milk if she chose to feed infant cereal at the appropriate age
or use formula. It was not until it was mentioned that cow's milk causes
intestinal bleeding that she was concerned about the small amount of milk
she used to mix cereal.

        Well, I have heard there are three theories about the role that lack
of breastfeeding plays in the onset of diabetes 1. BSA (bovine serum albumin
...i believe was one) , a virus yet to be found and a third theory which
escapes me for now.  Surely, commonsense tells intelligent people that human
milk is for human babies and the consequences of using the artificial
feeding products will be negative.

This story is interesting to me because I think women are often being spoken
down to, by MDs and sometimes by breastfeeding advocates. Lots of examples
but no time to relay them now.

Paula Bermingham,IBCLC