I had a Mom at our LLL meeting this week ask a very interesting question. With her permission, I am asking the experts here. What do you all think? Here it is: >>Also wanted to ask you about the antibody thing again. The question is: antibodies are transferred through breastmilk, and help the baby's immune system fight off diseases. Does this also stimulate the baby's immune system to make memory (long-term immunity) to those particular diseases, or does it only protect from infection until the baby weans? I realize it is a little more complicated, because often the baby and mom will be challenged by the same pathogen and so the baby will launch their own immune response boosted by mom's antibodies. But if baby gets antibodies from mom for something that baby hasn't been directly exposed to, is this a short term or long term immune boost?>> So does breastfeeding provide long term immunity or only temporary/short term immunity? We know about the long term benefits, but how does that relate to immunity specificly? Thanks for any help? Cristina *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html