Thankyou to every one for the interesting discussion on immunology and
breastmilk
The person with whom I have been discussing this is referring to women who
are relactating having previously weaned or inducing lactation/relactating
for an adopted child. The intention is good (to encourage women) but
misplaced to say "your child only needs 1/2 oz of breastmilk per feeding to
get all the benefits of breatmilk." I don't think it is helpful and
certainly is not accurate. I think that we can probably say (though I think
that the research is thin on the ground) that a small amount of milk is
better than none but we can also say that more is better, even considering
the changes in concentration of disease fighting components with volume.
Valerie, your comments about not separating out  the components of
breastmilk from the whole experience is also well taken (thanks too for the
citations).
Cathy you always bring great information whenever you post and I agree with
you that extrapolation from studies that look are looking at a particular
situation to a different situation is dangerous. I don't think that we have
much information at all about what happens in relactation and in fact I
briefly talked to Peter last year about working on this. No one has ever
looked at how the milk from a woman who has not recently had a baby might
change in compostion over their lactation once they relactate. So many
unanswered questions.

Karleen Gribble
Australia

PS. Thankyou everyone too for the suggestions on the 'mother job
description'. I hope to finish my application this weekend.

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