Tag: breastfeeding

  • The visual Milk Hypothesis

    ‘what we feed them now matters forever’…… www.infantfeedingmatters.com

  • MILK: THE BIOLOGY OF LACTATION

    MILK: THE BIOLOGY OF LACTATION by Michael L Power and Jay Schulkin (Johns Hopkins Press, 2016) This relatively small book aims to inform, stimulate and even challenge thought about milk and lactation, its evolution, and its importance to modern life. It achieves those aims. The structure is clear, the authors adhere to it, and summarise…

  • What 3-4 months means…

    There should be no recommendation for change to the age of introduction of other foods to breastfed infants. For formula fed infants, there may be a case for widening the diet from 3-4 months onwards, as total dependence on a single dehydrated industrial powder is inherently risky; moderation and variety are the keys to dietary…

  • LEAPing to conclusions: when to introduce foods

    LEAPing to conclusions about timing of widening the diet. Background Any society’s most common food allergens reflect both the immunological characteristics of the foods, and the cultural use of those foods. The most common western allergens are cows’ milk, egg, peanuts, and wheat, with cows’ milk protein allergy/hypersensitivity negatively affecting (and indeed killing) more children…

  • Research shows what parents have known for decades

    OK, here’s what’s been in the news. https://stm.sciencemag.org/content/8/321/321ra8 “Now, Zhang et al. report that infants who later developed food allergy had altered immunity at birth. Cord blood from these infants had more monocytes compared with CD4+ T cells and decreased numbers of regulatory T cells. Moreover, the monocytes from food-allergic infants secreted more inflammatory cytokines than…

  • Mastitis: old thoughts

    In 1985 I first argued, in Breastfeeding Matters: what we need to know about infant feeding, that mastitis is not (always) synonymous with breast infection, as was commonly said then.  This is by now accepted in the lactation consultant community. But a recent post in a mothers online group made me realise that the old idea is still alive…