Actually, it worked quite well, in a certain localised area.
Pretty much any breastfeeding site, although they’re a little vague as to the mechanism:
Rub a little breast milk on your nipples after each feeding and let it air dry. The milk actually helps heal them. At the end of each feeding, the nipple can be coated with some breast milk to keep it lubricated.
Allow some breast milk to dry on your nipples. Breast milk contains natural skin softeners and antibodies to fight infection, which can help heal nipples and keep them healthy.
Maternal breast milk placed on the nipples is the best treatment.
But it’s important to note that you don’t rub on milk and then stick your breast back into a moist bra. You rub on some milk and let the nipple dry thoroughly before putting it away. So there shouldn’t be good feeding medium for bacteria, and the antibodies in the milk can do their antibiotic thing. Otherwise, you’re right. A damp, moist, sugar filled environment is the perfect breeding ground for infection. That’s why, even in the tired post-partum days, it’s important to change your bra daily or go topless.
I’m a little skeptical of the claim until someone offers a plausible mechanism and puts some valid data behind it. Breastfeeding seems to be one of those areas where doctors sometimes quit the field in favor of people with… less rigorous scientific methods.
i think it’s just an area that attracts a lot of less than rigorous investigation.
snarky yeah, but seriously too.
From what I can tell, that effect is pretty much global.
All I know is, I want to find a copy of that poster. REALLY badly.
The mechanism is quite straight forward. Most breastfeeding sites don’t talk about, maybe because they think that new mothers don’t care or already know. Breast milk contains leukocytes which kill bacteria. Inject some bacteria into fresh breast milk and measure an hour later and the bacteria count goes down not up. Fresh breast milk will stay good for over eight hours at about 72 F. This is why frozen breast milk is dispreferred over refrigerated breast milk, and must be used immediately upon thawing. Previously frozen milk can go bad at room temperature amazingly fast. Leukocytes stick to glass better than they do to plastic, which is why one stores breast milk in plastic not glass.
lee, surely you realize that you have just given a plausible explanation as to why breast milk has antibacterial properties if ingested, but it is still supposition that it is effective topically in the manner described.
Have there been any ‘Ask the breast expert’ threads?
Actually, I did both. “Aside from being phagocytic” is the key phrase here. In other words, the leukocytes eat other cells. They literally eat up the bacteria and that is the antiseptic mechanism. Sorry, I thought that much was clear.
I’m just not seeing how they’re doing a whole lot once they’re dried out on the skin. Guess I could be wrong, but I’m under the impression that a white blood cell doesn’t live and work very long once you take it out of a nice aqueous environment.
And then you’ll be in your bunk, right?
Well, before it dries, it first eats the bacteria sitting around on the skin. Since it also contains lots of fat, it also does not cause the skin itself to dry out. The advice is to let the nipples air dry after applying the breast milk, because using a cloth would potentially introduce more bacteria. I do know that it seems to work and that none of the injuries to my nipples while I was breast feeding festered after I learned to do this.
Yep, that much is clear. Now explain how a thin and rapidly drying film of carrier fluid allows them to traverse the geography of the nipple and gobble up all the bacteria. Sorry, I thought the reason for my skepticism was clear.