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Comment by chromanoid | Hacker News Reader

I totally agree. Even "mere" breast feeding is still full of mysteries that developed during the millions of years of mammal evolution.

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Apart from the nutrients from breastfeeding, I recall that it is part of an immune system feedback loop. If the child is fighting off something, it is transferred to the nipple during breastfeeding. The mother's immune system develops a response and provides help to the child in the breast milk next feeding.

Interesting. Do you have a source for that?

Babbage podcast from the Economist had a great episode recently on it.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2LCTSD4k9bNDn6i8DzLv9r?si=D...

I'm sorry to be direct but I mean this in the best and most genuine way possible: how is a podcast a source?

Laypeople are much more likely to learn something useful and solid from a good podcast on a topic, run by someone (or with a guest) who has read the literature broadly and can distinguish solid papers from publish-or-perish drivel. Doing your own research, unless you dedicate an inordinate amount of time or energy to it, is very likely to lead you completely astray.

Well, they provided something and it’s from a reputable publication. You can wait around for more people to chime in or you can dig in yourself until then.

We are in casual conversation here.

The main factor at play here is maternal passive immunity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_immunity#Maternal_pass...

As far as I know, there's no (direct, retrograde) transfer of pathogens from the child to the mother through the breast. But if the child has an infection, there is often a higher chance for the mother to get ill as well (due to close body contact, aerosol particles, etc.) and to develop a "mature immune response", which could lead to a (delayed) positive secondary effect on the child through passive immunity.

Yes, interestingly some of the signal comes from kissing the baby.

sure, but take a survey of any group of five year olds - can you tell which ones were born by c-section? which ones were breastfed?

yes but you can measure various effects on the macro scale, which is why we think breast feeding is a little more beneficial than formula

It’s problematic in some ways. Many new mothers torture themselves unnecessarily about nursing vs formula because they want the best for their baby. The benefits of nursing are real, and if you can do it, great. But if you don’t have the time, biology or even just inclination to breastfeed, your baby will be fine.

There’s no evidence that says formula is detrimental, especially compared to not eating enough at all.

yes, always a risk... it's one way science reporting fails people I feel, they don't really explain the scale

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