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"Cow's Milk-Induced Infant Apnea"
Evolution devised an ingenious way to bond infant to mother: select for milk proteins that break down into peptides that have ***-like drug effects.
But what if the breastfeeding mother is, herself, effectively suckling by still drinking milk as an adult? Evolution never counted on that.
Which may explain this recent report in the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition: Cow's Milk-Induced Infant Apnea With Increased Serum Content of Bovine Beta-Casomorphin-5 -
that's one of the opioid compounds formed in our stomachs when we drink milk. Infant apnea means when an baby stops breathing.
They report a case of a breast-fed infant with recurrent apnea episodes, which have always been preceded by his mother's consumption of fresh cow's milk.
A biochemical examination has revealed a high level of casomorphin in the child's blood. They speculate that it is an opioid activity that may have a depressive effect
on the respiratory center in the central nervous system and induce a phenomenon they coin "milk apnea."
The reason we're so concerned is that about 7 to 10 % of infants with recurrent apneic episodes cannot be saved, and they die of sudden infant death syndrome.
The researchers hooked the kid up to a monitor and wanted to give him some cow's milk to provoke a reaction on tape, but the boy's mother did not grant consent for his oral provocation with cow's milk because of her fears for the child's life.
She finally relented though and when the boy was four months old, attempted to provoke him with milk, after which an apparent life-threatening event reoccurred.
Presently, the 21-month-old boy is kept on a milk-free diet and has no more symptoms.
The aim of the present report, they conclude, is to draw researchers' attention to the possibility of occurrence of a systemic reaction with an apnea seizure on the infant's exposure to the proteins in cow's milk.
We are convinced that such a clinical situation occurs rarely; however, it is accompanied by a real threat to the infant's life that can be avoided when applying a simple and not costly dietetic intervention: a dairy-free diet.