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Dear Lactation Consultant:
When my mother was pregnant with me in the mid 1970s, she was told NOT to breast feed because she had many allergies and her doctor told her she would most likely pass those allergies on to her baby. Surprise!!! I am also an allergy ridden person, both to foods and to pollens, etc. I know that doctors today believe that breast feeding can help my children against becoming allergic. I am 3 months pregnant with twins and hoping to breast feed them. I know a lot has been learned in the 37 years since I was born. Can you share some insight?
Thank you.
Carla Post
Studio City, CA
Dear Carla:
You are correct in that over the last 50 years much has been learned about the relationship between breast feeding and allergy development and using formula and the increased rate of certain allergies.
We now know that human milk does protect against the development of allergens in most infants and babies because it provides complete nutrition with species-specific proteins. By breast feeding, if there is a family history of food allergy (mother or father’s side), if mom avoids those foods in her diet, she is providing a barrier in the breast milk to the gut to prevent absorption of antigens in a typically immature immune system. The prevention of early food allergy is apparent in that less than .5% of exclusively breast fed infants/babies show signs of food allergies. This does not mean your baby will never develop allergies, but rather that you will be able to slow the onset of any allergies until your child is older (and from personal experience, this makes a tremendous difference in treatment and tolerance.)
You can find more detailed information on this topic in a scientific article called "The effects of respiratory infections, atopy, and breastfeeding on childhood asthma" printed in the European Respiratory Journal, 2002; 19:899-905 and reprinted as "Breastfeeding, Asthma, and Atopic Disease: An Epidemiological Review of the Literature" in the Journal of Human Lactation, August, 2003; 19 (3): pp 250-261. You can click Here to download a PDF of the original article from the European Respiratory Journal.
--Leslye Adelman, IBCLC
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