I'd like to contribute a few thoughts to this discussion. I arrived at the conclusion that
first-borns were being exposed to more toxins about ten years ago. I became interested in
hyperactive children, as they were called then, and did a survey of everyone I knew who had
children. Out of forty hyperactive children, about thirty were first-born boys. I posed the theory
that firstborns got the megadose of toxins from a mother's body through the placenta, and that boys
were more susceptible to them. At the time, when I mentioned this theory to people in a
mother/baby-care profession, I was looked at like this was science-fiction. So it's a delight to
read the theory here.

One of my thoughts from then: shouldn't there be extra support for mothers of first-born boys? From
the discussion here, it's clear that many ibclcs are sensitized to behavioral differences in
first-borns. Are doctors and nurses also aware of this? Ideally, shouldn't these children be
provided extra health-care supervision from the start? Since my firstborn boy was also hyperactive
and had GERD, I know what it feels like to have a difficult child the first time around. Must
mothers really be left alone with that?

Another thought: I am reminded of cultures that breastfeed animals, and use these to rid the mother
of 'bad milk'. It's interesting that we have a concept here that is so foreign to our way of
thinking, but that can be transferred to this situation with dioxin. In ten years, will we be
encouraging the mothers of first-borns to overproduce milk and dispose some of it during the first
few weeks after birth?

To dairy: shouldn't we be encouraging girls to avoid dairy from a young age? (Help -- my daughter
loves dairy.)

Hilary Jacobson
expat in Switzerland, about to be certified LC (the IBCLC here only allows medical people to take
the exam)

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