There is an article in the Volkskrant, a Dutch newspaper, about allergies.
It was very interesting, stating that the increase in allergies is due to
the increased hygiene, causing the child doesn't catch enough infections.
It talked about the immunesystem, t-cells (th1 and th2 cells), that are
involved in the deveopment of allergies, and of course I thougth about the
role of human milk in this process. But no word in the whole article about
breastfeeding!

Anyway, they mentioned research in which children from Munchen (former West
Germany) were compared with children from Leipzig (former East Germany).
Before the fall of the wall, the children from Leipzig had much less
allergies, but after the fall the rate of allergies is raising rapidly.
The researchers think this is due to better hygiene. Eg it is shown that
children who get a bath every day, and wash hands at least 5 times a day,
are more prone to develop asthma, than children who are washed less times.
Another thing they suspected was the increased comsumption of margarine in
Eastern Germany. The linol acid in margerine is suspected to be transformed
in IgE cells in the body.

Since breastfeeding wasn't mentioned i plan to write a letter, to point out
this is a factor that cannot be overlooked in comparing these groups of
children. Therefor i need the bf rates in Western germany, in Eastern
Grmany before and after the fall of the wall. I know that before the fall
in Eastern Europe there were a lot of human milk banks. These have been
closed down after the fall of the wall.

Additional question: does anyone knows about the marketing strategies of
the formula producers in former Eastern Germany? I suspect they try hard to
push formula, but I don't know if this is true.

regards, Annelies Bon
breastfeeding counsellor of the Dutch bf organization "Borstvoeding Natuurlijk"


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Annelies Bon      http://utopia.knoware.nl/users/abon/bfbronnen.html
mother of Dirk 7yo, Tom 5yo, Pieter 2yo
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