At the request of one of the listmothers, I've been asked to publicly share
some thoughts. This is from a recent post and sums up what may become my
lengthy story:
Ok, so if you win eight medals in one Olympic Games and fourteen total, y=
we really have no business speculating on whether he was
breastfed and whether he would have a different facial structure if he had
been, and we have no reason to think he could have performed any better
Is speculation over whether or not one was breastfed, or breastfed long
enough, with no history from mom, no exam of the child, no evidence of
anything, really a good use of our time and mental energies anyway? And how
does it make us, as breastfeeding advocates, appear to others, especially
when we're proven wrong? (It can happen...we can be wrong!) I admit, I've
done it many times. But now I'm eating Humble Pie. Perhaps I can help
prevent you from sharing that unpalatable, hard-to-swallow snack with me.
My husband has a long, narrow face. Not as long and narrow as the one we've
recently been discussing, but quite so. In fact, we joke that he has the
biggest brain in the smallest head ever on record. Perhaps his mother did
not breastfeed him long enough. I've often wished she had nursed him at
least as long as she had nursed his four older siblings. One of his sisters
has four grown daughters, all of whom she breastfed 12-18 months and who all
skipped the bottle stage. Maybe that's not "long enough" either because
three of her daughters, though they are attractive, have very elongated
faces and/or chins. One of them was at some point supposed to have surgery,
something involving breaking her jaw. I don't remember if that ever
happened. I think this is a genetic pattern. So is the high IQ that my boys
share despite their significant dyslexia, also genetic.
My own 12 year old is quite the handsome man, if I must say so myself. His
third birthday party was really his "weaning party" as that event coincided
with his birthday. As he approaches puberty, his face is changing shape.
It's much narrower and longer than I would've imagined. His nose is looking
more and more like his grandma's as he matures (not what I would've wished
for him). He has already had braces once and will probably need them again.
And oh, his allergy to cats is at least as severe as mine, and I was
breastfed for three months, not three years. He takes daily allergy meds
during the spring and summer to get through the day while I have been able
to go without them this season (Like my husband, I was breastfed three
months).
Here's the real kicker: My 9 year old has been a medical mystery all his
life for several big things, but he's been heathly enough to not succumb to
the dreaded allergies. He nursed slightly past his third birthday. Less than
three months ago, we almost lost him. By the time I got him to the doctor's
office, his resting heartrate was 180. Two days later, after he had had
xrays, CT scans, a visit with a pedi cardiologist and a pedi pulmonologist,
pulmonary function tests, two EKGs, an echocardiogram, and tons of blood
work (after collapsing on me upon leaving the lab to go to the
cardiologist's office), we were told to take him home and put him in front
of the tv, give him his favorite foods and drinks, and not let him move
around anymore than necessary as he was at high risk for sudden cardiac
death (I know---take him HOME???) due to suspected pulmonary hypertension.
His heart was enlarged and working very hard. The long night in the sleep
lab took place the following night to rule out obstructive sleep apnea,
among other things.
What caused this horrible scare, sickened my child, and cost us thousands of
dollars? It was hypersensitivity pneumonitis, a lung disease caused by a
severe allergy. It very nearly killed him, and I shudder to think what would
have happened if the correct diagnosis, extremely rare in children, had not
been made immediately.
Let me repeat: my child who was breastfed for over three years (with serious
restrictions in mom's diet), had a delayed and controlled start to solids,
and maintains a much healthier-than-average diet was nearly killed due to an
allergy.
Both my children are competitive athletes who train on an elite team at the
US Olympic Training Center (alongside some of our other medal winners :)).
It's kinda strange to see my little man puffing his inhaler before he goes
to practice, but he now is struggling with small airways that are 47%
blocked. Perhaps this is true asthma, perhaps it is something residual from
the HP. I hope it goes away, but I have no idea if it will. On Friday this
kid endured a stress test on a treadmill. That afternoon he had a private
session with his coach while he was hooked up to a portable EKG. We're
trying to find out why he becomes cyanotic during exercise.
A large tour at the USOTC came through the gym while he was in a private
session, over 100 people. We were the only ones in the gym. Since we waived
all rights to privacy when our kids made this team at the USOTC, everyone
there took photos of the coach and my son in their private session, complete
with the "robot gymnast," my son hooked up to the portable EKG. Do you think
some of those people wondered, or will wonder when they get home and look at
their photos, what horrible problems that kid had? Maybe there's a
breastfeeding advocate in that group who will determine that if he had been
breastfed, or breastfed longer, and he'd be all fine.
My son recovered for six weeks and was then given a clean bill of health,
besides what appears to be asthma. Then weird things started happening---he
got short of breath despite meds, he'd turn blue during hard conditioning
exercises, he's sleeping a lot again, etc. Just last week we met with the
cardiologist and had a stress test to definitively rule out long QT
syndrome, which is a sudden cardiac killer of athletes, because one of his
EKGs showed it as a possibility (he does not have this). And now he's on the
portable EKG during select workouts to see what is going on. HP is in his
genes. While his heart is back to normal size, his heartate and blood
pressure are extremely low now (too low really), his lungs are clear, and he
feels much better, he'll never be able to tolerate the "allergens" that
triggered this disease.
All this because of a severe allergy. In a breastfed kid.
I was asked to share this because of some attitudes revealed on Lactnet that
if only so-and-so had breastfed, her kids would be perfect, or at least not
have autism/asthma/malocclusion/ADHD, or at least they wouldn't be so plain
stupid! Trust me, I am very glad that I DID breastfeed them as long as I
did, especially now that I realize my own kids could be much more
compromised without that boost. But making quick judgments of this nature
helps no one.
Like I said, Humble Pie isn't very tasty. I'd rather not share it with you.
Amy
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