Chapter Four
(^) 1. A baby’s immune system is developed by two means. During
pregnancy, disease-fighting proteins called antibodies pass from the
mother’s blood to the baby’s blood. They provide temporary protection
against the many illnesses to which the mother has been exposed. After
birth, the baby’s immune system is enhanced with breast milk. That is
done two ways: 1) by the passing of the mother’s antibodies through the
milk, which are then absorbed into the child’s bloodstream; and 2) by
way of the bifidus factor. Infants are born with millions of tiny organisms
in a semidormant state which are members of the lactobacillus-bifidus
family. Their growth is stimulated by certain elements in the mother’s
milk. As these organisms grow, they produce acetic and lactic acids that
prevent the growth of many disease-producing organisms, such as E. coli
and dysentery bacilli. This does not mean that bottle-fed babies have no
immune system; they do, but it is not as protective.
- Pediatrics, 100, no. 6 (December 1997): p. 1036.
- Ibid., p. 1036.
- Ibid., pp. 136–137.
- See the work of Nancy Butte, Cathy Wills, Cynthia Jean, E.
O’Brian Smith and Cutberto Garza, “Feeding patterns of exclusively
breast-fed infants during the first four months of life,” (Houston:
USDA/ARS Children’s Nutrition Research Center, 1985). - Jan Riordan and Kathleen Auerbach, Breastfeeding and Human
Lactation (Sudbury Mass.: Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 1993), p. 520. - Sources supporting these recommended number of feeding times:
American Academy of Pediatrics Policy Statement Pediatrics 100, no. 6,
(December 1997): 1037. Frank Oski, M.D., Principles and Practice of
Pediatrics, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1994), p.
307; Richard E. Behrman, M.D., Victor C. Vaughan, M.D., Waldo E.
Nelson, M.D., Nelsons Textbook of Pediatrics, 13th ed. (Philadelphia:
W.B. Sauders Company, 1987), p. 124. Kathleen Huggins, The Nursing
Mother’s Companion, 3rd ed. (Boston: The Harvard Common Press,
1995), p. 35. Jan Riordan and Kathleen Auerbach, Breastfeeding and