Just a couple of thoughts on these issues: My mother got the mumps when I was three weeks old, and was told she *had* to continue nursing me. She describes sitting on the edge of the bed gritting her teeth from the pain while I nursed. I have never had the mumps myself. I'm wondering if the breast milk contained both virus and anti-bodies so that I got a sub-clinical case of the mumps myself (mom says I "wasn't sick at all") and got some anti-bodies from her to fight the disease, but also made enough myself to produce active immunity, without any symptoms. I suspect the poster who says she's never had chicken pox might have had a sub-clinical case that was enough to produce antibodies. Generally, the more severe the infection the greater the symptoms and the greater the antibody response (so that you can get two mild cases of chicken pox, for example), but I'll bet sometimes the symptoms are mild but the antibody response is sufficient, while other times the symptoms are severe but the antibody response is poor. Any thoughts? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------- Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D. email: [log in to unmask] Anthropology Department phone: (409) 845-5256 Texas A&M University fax: (409) 845-4070 College Station, TX 77843-4352