>I copied off an  article from the May 1998 issue entitled "Effects of
>Exposure to Alcohol in Mother's Mlk on Infant Sleep" by Julie A Mennella
>and Carolyn J Gerrish.  Their conclusions: "Although the mechanisms
>underlying the reduction in sleep remain to be elucidated, this study
>shows that short-term exposure to small amounts of alcohol in breast
>milk produces distinctive changes in the sleep-awake patterning."

I read of this "study" on the Reuters News Service a couple of weeks ago
and was amazed that they could have concluded from such a study that they
were assessing the effect of a breastfeeding mother's drinking alcohol.

I wonder what the effect on the babies would have been if they had put the
alcohol into some abm. Would they then have said that "small amounts of
alcohol in infant formula produces distinctive changes in the sleep-awake
patterning"? Why didn't they check the sleep-awake patterning of babies
whose mothers drank a glass of wine with their dinners?

It sounds like that study that concluded that exercising made babies reject
their mothers' milk.  The milk had been pumped and "offered" to breastfed
babies in a bottle.

Is it surprising to anyone that the Journal of Pediatrics (I assume that
this is the source of this report.) would print such a ridiculous study?
Don't they know about the reabsorption of alcohol from the breast after a
given time?  Don't they know that alcohol consumed along with a meal, as is
done throughout the world, affects the blood alcohol level, so that it
would *not* be the same as pouring straight alcohol into breastmilk?  The
least they could have said is that women who are breastfeeding are advised
to limit their alcohol intake, as should mothers of artificially fed
infants, and that they time their intake for the least alcohol levels in
their milk.

My sister said that there was something on one of the shows such as 20/20
about alcohol and breastmilk.  Did anyone see it?  Is it based on this same
"research"?

I believe that all of this is another avenue of indictment against
breastfeeding.  And another effort to show how "un-natural" and complicated
breastfeeding is.

Patricia Gima, IBCLC
Milwaukee


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