Dr. Hanson has written a great book exploring this topic. For anyone interested in learning more about breastfeeding and immunities, I would encourage them to read _Immunobiology of Human Milk_ by Lars Hanson, MD, PhD. It can be found at www.lalecheleague.org. (I have no connection to this book.) Mary Wales In a message dated 8/14/2004 6:39:31 PM Marsha writes: The question has been asked about whether breastfeeding improves a child's active immunities and not just passively through antibodies and other factors that are present in breastmilk. Lars Hanson did a plenary session at ILCA on immunities and he said that the thymus of a child who was breastfed is twice as large as that of a child who was formula fed. The thymus is where t-lymphocytes come from (macrophages are in this category.) He also said that the incidence of diarrhea, upper and lower respiratory tract infections, otitis media and UTI's are decreased FOR YEARS after breastfeeding. Obviously it makes a difference, not just for the short term (while breastfeeding) but the long term as well. It only stand to reason, in my mind anyway, that the building materials one uses in building anything are as important as the structure of the thing one builds. So, breastmilk would provide better "raw materials" from which the immune system is built than formula would. *********************************************** 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