Nature Is Right Again

(Source: Unknown)

 "On the front cover of "Discover" magazine June 1999 issue. "HUMAN BREAST MILK KILLS CANCER CELLS"

 And what is in human breast milk?  5 of the eight essential glyconutrients. (Remember the reprint of a recent study reported in Science & Medicine -Vol. 4, Number 6 - Nov/Dec 1997) showing that human breast milk has at least 5 of the essential saccharides?)

 

Breastmilk Reduces Infection Rate in NICU 

Breastmilk provided to very low birth weight, preterm infants in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) may decrease the chances of these infants acquiring infections in the NICU by 53 to 57 percent. Researchers from Georgetown University Medical Center and Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health studied the medical records of 212 very low birth weight, preterm infants who were hospitalized between January 1992 and September 1993. They compared the incidence of infections in infants who received human milk with those who received formula exclusively. The researchers discovered that 29.3% of the preterm infants who were fed human milk acquired infections vs. 47.2% of the formula-fed infants. In addition, sepsis and/or meningitis occurred in 19.5 percent of the infants fed human milk and 32.6 percent of the formula-fed infants. All infections occurred after the very low birth weight infants started receiving feedings. (Women's Health Weekly, September 14, 1998)

 

Another story from Dec 23/98.  http://cnn.com/HEALTH/9812/23/breast.milk.banks.ap/index.html

 "Finally, new medical advantages are being discovered for human breast milk. It helps heal babies with infectious diseases, intractable diarrhea and pneumonia. Children with severe allergies sometimes can digest nothing else. Adults recovering from solid organ transplants and suffering from AIDS find it helps them put on weight. In Mexico, it is poured on burns.

 

 "Exclusive Breastfeeding Cuts Child's Asthma Risk April 27, 1999

 SAN DIEGO (Reuters Health) -- Exclusive breastfeeding through 4 months of age protects against asthma for at least the first 6 years of life, according to Dr. Wendy Oddy, of the TVW Telethon Institute for Child Health Research in Perth, Western Australia.  Oddy presented the finding Sunday at the American Lung Association/American Thoracic Society International Conference here.  Approximately half of the nearly 3,000 infants in the study were fed only breast milk until 4 months of age, making this an appropriate threshold for examining the effects of exclusive breast feeding on asthma symptoms.  In comparing the two groups, Oddy and her team found that diagnosed asthma, wheezing, sleep disturbance due to respiratory symptoms, and signs of allergy were all significantly more common in children fed other milk before age 4 months than in those exclusively breast-fed through the 4th month.

 The study results may mean that "the introduction of other milk is a risk factor" for asthma at age 6 years, but in an interview with Reuters Health, Oddy said that the more plausible way of looking at it is that breastfeeding is protective. Other studies have also demonstrated a protective effect of breastfeeding, but Oddy's is the first to look specifically at exclusive breastfeeding.  Oddy pointed out that human breast milk contains a unique combination of fatty acids, immunoglobulins and other biologically-active compounds essential to the proper development of the infant's immune system.

Oddy also suggested that the decline in breastfeeding may be one of many factors contributing to the current "epidemic" of asthma in developed countries.  Oddy's team is currently in the process of determining if this association persists in an 8-year follow-up of the group of children studied. She notes that in a smaller, Finnish study, the link between breastfeeding and asthma was observed for as long as 17 years.

 Although there are a variety of barriers to breastfeeding today, including alack of support for new mothers from families and the healthcare system, Oddy believes that "a lot more mothers can breastfeed than think they can. "One of the main factors determining if a woman will breastfeed is her partner's attitude. "If the father commits, the mother commits" to breastfeeding, according to Oddy. For this reason, she believes that increased antenatal education for both parents is important to improving rates of breastfeeding in developed countries.

 

NURSING AND SURVIVAL

The secret is out---what mothers and babies have known for centuries and the medical/pharmaceutical industrial complex is just now finding out. The Infant Welfare Center of Chicago has tracked the health and development of 20,061 infants. They discovered those who were breast-fed for the first nine months have a death rate of only 0.15%, those who were partially breast-fed had a death rate of 0.7% and those who were artificially fed had a death rate of 8.4%. That’s FIFTY-SIX times greater than the rate among the breast-fed babies. In Holland 80% of the infants are born at home.  They also have the best infant survival rate in the world. Meanwhile, the United States has less than 20% of infants born at home and the survival rate is twenty-first in the world. Does that give us a clue or what?