Breast feeding and PANDAS

[PhillyPA]

Lancaster, PA has a plethora of raw milk. It would be a day trip for a New Yorker. Who knows - maybe the Amish deliver...

[forjpj]

Two pandas children...one entirely bottle, one entirely breast. I'm conducting my own experiment here!!

[Doug]

Nope,

bottle only

Tracie

[airial95]

Breastfed until 17 months, with formula mixed in at daycare for about 3 months...ironically, we weaned because he was so verbsal by 17 months that one day he walked up to me and said "mommy, I want booby". We thought that might be a good time to quit. He got his PANDAS inducing impetigo infection just a couple months later...

 

On a side note, we too had severe reflux, he was medicated for it until 15 months.

[Suzan]

dd#1 breastfed for 12 weeks and dd#2 breastfed for 8 weeks. Used formula after and had to keep switching around until I found one that they could keep down. Suspected dairy allergy at early age.

 

Susan

[T_Mom]

Breastfed both children for the first year essentially exclusively...

 

First child breastfed until 2 years old, second child for 18 months.

First child had red face patches whenever I would ingest milk products--(so I quit all milk products for me at the time.) Second child had no such allergies.

Edited August 1, 2010 by T.Mom

[monarchcat]

Breastfed my PANDAS boy til he was 2 1/2 (his PANDAS started at age 5... maybe earlier), breastfed my PANDAS daughter til she was 3 1/2 (she's turning 4 this week and had her first PANDAS episode a couple months ago).

[mama2alex]

Breastfed exclusively for 9 months, then combined that with some foruma for 4 more months.

[momto2pandas]

Breastfed 22 months for each, no formula.

 

Breastfeeding should help with immunity since maternal antibodies are passed through the breastmilk to the baby. Unfortunately, I don't produce proper antibodies to strep (or probably other things) that I could pass down to them, and they got strep early (while still breastfeeding). I also apparently produce auto-reactive antibodies (tested positive for those in Cunningham and other studies), even when I feel fine -- probably because I have an adult BBB that's not so susceptible to interleukin. I have wondered if each of my kids spent 2 years getting my rotten auto-antibodies in their systems as well as some good ones. I had strep while breastfeeding so in principle I could have produced antibodies that attacked my KIDS' brains.

 

Bad mommy ;-)

[tpotter]

One was breastfed until 1 1/2 years old, the younger one was breastfed for 4 months (I needed surgery, and couldn't breastfeed, because of medication), then bottle fed.

[Iowadawn]

Breastfed all three. The two girls to one year. The oldest has an adol version of PANDAS. Breastfed my PANDAS boy until 10 months and decided to wean because he was an awful nurser. So distracted...Argh!!! A week after he was weaned he got his first very nasty URI and from then on it was one thing after another. Dawn

[peglem]

Breastfed, but I did have a breast infection at @ 1 month- was told to breastfeed through it!

[EAMom]

My PANDAS child was breastfed, although she did get a bit of forumula early on because it took me a little extra time for my milk to come in (we worked with the hosp. lactation consultant--delayed onset of lactation). So, in the first 1-2 weeks she did get some formula supplementation (because she wasn't gaining enuf weight). After the first 1-2 weeks she was totally off formula. She breastfed until well into toddlerhood.

[momaine]

Breastfed 16 months, exclusively.

[KaraM]

I breastfed by PANDAS daughter exclusively for first 3 months, then gradually supplemented with formula. I weaned her at 18 months because I had walking pneumonia and was simply exhausted. I've wondered about whether this exposure might have contibuted to her issues, but her mycoplama pneumonia test results were negative.