Barbara,
I was interested in your speculation that the immune cells and bacteria
would clump in ebm.  Immune complexes are formed when all the different
arms of the immune system are busy doing their jobs, composed of wbc's
(white blood cells) antibodies, complement, and the germs they are
attacking.  Is the complement system active in human milk?  (For the
non-medical, complement is a cascade of proteins that grab onto an
antibody 'tagged' germ and punch holes in it.  There are about 14
different proteins if I remember my long ago immunology classes
correctly, each of which stimulates the next to get in on the action.
Works kind of like the clotting system).  Add up 2 antibodies per germ,
complement cascades working at these 2 antibodies, and all the different
leukocytes that are involved (macrophages, b cells, all the variants of t
cells...) and I imagine one could theoretically see a cloudy clump in the
milk.  Frustrating how little we know, we are still in the stone-age in
our understanding of the female human body.
--
Catherine Watson Genna, IBCLC  NYC  [log in to unmask]