Environmenal concerns

An interesting study out of the University of Rochester Medical Center may have found a reason that many moms have trouble breastfeeding.  According to the researchers it may come down to the environment.  Conducting tests on mice, they found that abundant pollutants can adversely affect the way mammary glands develop during pregnancy.  Things like the burning of municipal and medical waste, especially plastics. 

How would you be exposed to this, you ask?  Through your diet.  The researchers say that dioxins get into the food supply when air emissions land on crops and fields where livestock graze.  Fish also ingest dioxins and other pollutants from contaminated waters.  It makes perfect sense if you think about it. 

When we eat meat, dairy, fish and shellfish, we often are taking in dioxins, which settle in fatty tissues.  Expelling it happens very slowly.  Apparently, researchers have found that dioxin has a profound effect on breast tissue by causing mammary cells to stop their natural cycle of proliferation starting as early as six days into pregnancy and lasting through mid-pregnancy.

They also found that dioxin alters the induction of milk-producing genes.

No, we don't need to all become vegans in order to be able to breastfeed.  what we do need to do it prssure our lawmakers to enforce stricter environmental controls.  It's good for everyone!