Breastmilk vs. Formula Debate

I can't find a good link, but I'm wondering if the distinction between health risk and vulnerability has relevance to our debate?

Any insight?

That is an interesting question.  When posed like that I would think the terms do  in fact have different meanings.

An example of health risk IMO would be smoking.  There are confirmed reports that smoking is a cause of lung cancer.  It is not the only one and not all smokers will DIE of lung cancer but it is a known risk of smoking.

A child will not get a cold, whether BF or FF if they are not exposed to the germ causing the cold.  The risk is the exposure to the germ, the vulnerability to contracting the illness, in this case the cold, would include the strength of the immune system.  In this case a FF child might be more vulnerable to fall ill if coming in contact with the germ  than the BF child.  A child who is highly vulnerable to ear infections will get more ear infections than other kids whether BF or FF but the child who is vulnerable to ear infections might get fewer ear infections if BF than the kid who has the same vulnerability but is FF.

Interesting that you bring this up Nisu.  I was thinking about this in the Risk thread.

Originally I was thinking that a child with (for instance) congenital heart disease would be at higher risk from FF.  My thought is that it would be even more important for a child w/ a chronic health condition to BF.

But then I thought about the other thread and wondered why the same substance would create more risk in one person than another.

When you posted this, it clicked.  It isn't so much that the *risk* changes, but the *vulnerability* to this risk.

You could say that the opposite of vulnerability is resiliancy.  A healthy person is, in general, more resiliant than a sick one.  A well-nourished person is, in general, more resiliant than a malnourished one.

So if a young healthy person contracts the seasonal flu, generally they have the resources, or health reserve, to fight off the flu and not get severely ill.  An elderly person with chronic lung disease, on the other hand, doesn't have that reserve, so if she gets the flu, she is more vulnerable, or less resilient, and is more likely to end up hospitalized or to die from the flu.  Young infants are similarly more vulnerable/less resilient.

We are used to this concept, b/c hearing about an elderly person dying of an infection doesn't have the shock value of a young healthy person dying of an infection.  Usually for that to happen, it's got to be a more severe infection, overwhelming even a healthy person's reserve, or at least a way of getting around the normal defenses.  One of the reasons the elderly do not seem to be as affected by H1N1 flu is that a similar strain circulated in the 50's, so people over 60 actually are more likely to have antibodies, whereas the young healthy people don't have this protection.  Also, this strain appears to have more ability to invade healthy lung tissue than the seasonal flu, which makes it potentially more severe in young healthy people.

Anyhow, to get back to the topic of BFing, if you have an infant with congenital heart disease which is going to require surgery, this infant will have less reserve.  So it's even more important for him to have breastmilk to maximize his resiliency, minimize his vulnerability.

A child w/ cystic fibrosis is definitely at higher risk b/c of CF of lung infections.  Again, less reserve, and more need for breastmilk to minimize her chance of severe infections.

So while the *risks* may be the same if you consider this to be an attribute of the breastmilk substitute, the *vulnerability* of infants to these risks will vary, depending on their individual characteristics, their health reserve and resiliency.

I hope that this made sense.  I'm tired (my normal state these days) and not always coherent.

 
  
 
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I think you've explained it really well, Spencer. I completely agree!

"One of the reasons the elderly do not seem to be as affected by H1N1 flu is that a similar strain circulated in the 50's, so people over 60 actually are more likely to have antibodies, whereas the young healthy people don't have this protection."

Regarding this, assuming a women over 60 who was exposed and so has these antibodies, had breastfed her children and therefore passed them onto the children, would those antibodies then be passed on to the grandchildren if they're also breastfed?