will ebm help an older child recover from an illness?

[Aranea]

I've just expressed 60mls and disguised it in a blueberry milkshake for my 4yo who has been ill all week. Might it help or is this barmy?

I was thinking maybe the antibodies would help her, but then again have no idea what quantity would be required to make a difference. Anybody got any idea??

Won't help, won't hurt.

No reason why it wouldn't help. It's especially good for tummy bugs I suspect.

She may have been joking, but someone once posted on here about using up some EBM in her older kids' hot chocolate!

It certainly won't have harmed him and when ill the high calorie bm will at least get some calories into him.

I think it may have been me and the hot chocolate! I have certainly done it with my 4yo occasionally (not expressing any more but been tempted lately with him still run ragged)

I have no idea whether it made any concrete difference. I remember Tiktok once saying immunity was dose-related in BF, so the more you give the more effective: which might imply in reverse that a 'one off' of EBM might make little difference. But why not give it a try I say?

Thanks guys. That's more or less what I suspected, Wilf. Suppose I had a sort of irrational hope (desperate) that it might magically cure her!

Still, on the plus side, at least no-one's said I'm insane...

kellymom says 50 ml or more per day has been shown to be beneficial iirc. (they haven't done research on less than this). So if that is correct I'd say it may help!

Wahay! Thank you for that!

I would say of course its fantastic!How can we measure this?
I recently had a measles scare and planned to restart breastfeeding my entire family as i knew it would help my poor un vaccinated kids!
no one got measles and I would happily give my 75 year dad my milk to protect him from stuff
I worry about vaccs and trust b/feeding

Not sure of a 4yr old tbh
but glad i could still bf dd 13 mth when she got stomach bug was the only thing she could keep down!!

Well, if it helps - I was thinking the same thing this week - as my 6y old and 4y old have been quite unwell with d&v - the bf baby had it for a day - and dropped a lot of his solid feeds in favour for bm, and - basically was only ill for a day compared to the kids who were poorly for several days.

I did at one time wonder if my bm would help my DH who has crohns.....?! (expressed of course!)....

Whatever...its easy to digest so thats something