Mum shares incredible pic of her breast milk before and after immunisation
A mum has posted an amazing image on Facebook revealing how her breast milk changed for her baby after being vaccinated.
But like all things to do with how we feed our babies and vaccination, it has ignited a commentary storm.
Magic milk
The mum, Jody Fisher, shared the side by side pic of expressed milk taken the day before her toddler’s injections and two days afterwards.
The one on the left is more creamy in colour, while the one on the right expressed after her daughter Nancy’s one-year immunisations clearly has a blue tinge.
Jody believes the reason for the colour change is another example of how incredible breast milk is.
“It’s blue from all the antibodies my body is producing, as it thinks she’s sick with what she was vaccinated against!” she says in the post.
“When she feeds, her saliva sends signals to my body to produce more milk with illness specific antibodies!”
Is she right?
Interestingly, Jody’s hypothesis that her breast milk is responding to her little one’s changing needs following her needles may be true.
It’s a fact that mother’s milk adapts in all sorts of ways as our babies grow and also when they get sick.
“It can be completely unique at every different hour – it is pretty magic stuff. For instance, if you have a pre-term baby, it can be specific to just that baby in terms of nutrients and to give baby what it needs to grow and catch up as well,” lactation consultant Katrina Tucker from The Baby Brain confirmed in a similar story we reported on back in February last year.
Research also backs up Jody’s point about her bub’s saliva triggering the creation of antibodies in her breast milk.
So she’s not wrong.
“This is one of the reasons I’m still breastfeeding 13 months on,” writes Jody.
“You don’t get all this goodness and nutrients from formula or cows milk! Way to go boobies!”
But not everyone is celebrating.
Holy shit, I wasn’t expecting this to go viral!
Jody’s post has been spread far and wide. At the time of writing it has received 12k reactions, 9.5k comments and 7.6k shares.
While most of the comments have been positive, with reactions such as “amazballs!” Jody has also ruffled a few feathers.
While she intended to showcase how incredible our bodies are, Jody has had to add some edits to her post following backlash from bottle-feeding mums and anti-vaxxers.
To formula feeders she writes:
“I’m by no way shaming formula.”
“I formula fed my 1st, and combi fed my 2nd & 3rd. I Was merely showing what women’s bodies can do when their children are poorly and this is one of the reasons I’m still breastfeeding at 13 months as I’m often questioned as to why I’m still doing so.”
Anti-vaxxers attack
Anti-vaxxers have used Jody’s post as a forum to state their position, but Jody has had enough.
To the anti-vaxxers she had this to say:
“This goes to show the vaccines are doing exactly what they are meant to do, and so is my daughter’s body and mine. The whole point of vaccinations is to introduce a very very weakened version of what virus/disease you want immunity over. Which causes your body to make antibodies and ‘heal’ itself, which then in turn makes your body think you have already had said virus/disease so your won’t get a more deadly real version in the future when/if you’re exposed to it.”
“Don’t come on my post preaching about not having vaccinations and them been poisonous ? I hope your child(ren) never becomes ill with anything serious or doesn’t pass it on to a poor baby waiting to have their immunisations because you don’t believe in vaccinations!”
Ouch.
But how amazing is this pic and how amazing are mothers, no matter how we feed our babies. Fed is best.