I'm not sold on the validity of it all, but it's something to think about.

Here's the important bit:

"According to Hinde, when a baby suckles at its mother's breast, a vacuum is created. Within that vacuum, the infant's saliva is sucked back into the mother's nipple, where receptors in her mammary gland read its signals. This "baby spit backwash," as she delightfully describes it, contains information about the baby's immune status. Everything scientists know about physiology indicates that baby spit backwash is one of the ways that breast milk adjusts its immunological composition. If the mammary gland receptors detect the presence of pathogens, they compel the mother's body to produce antibodies to fight it, and those antibodies travel through breast milk back into the baby's body, where they target the infection.

At the same time that it is medicine, breast milk is a private conversation between mother and child. While my daughter lacks words, breast-feeding makes it possible for her to tell me exactly what she needs. The messages we are sending each other are literally made of ourselves, and they tell us about what is going on in our lives at that very moment."

http://www.skepticalob.com/2015/09/mothers-and-babies-commun...

It would certainly be interesting to see how often the mother was producing antibodies for things that the father wasn't (more mundane infection vectors are one of the ideas presented at my link, if baby, mother and father are all sick, you don't have much evidence of the saliva being important).

that's a very descartesian view, and from my experience and study also very unfounded. all you need to do is observe a baby while it's brestfed vs. bottlefed.

would you say that you feel the same after eating off the floor (very clean of course) vs. in a nice setting? after all, it's just about the nutrients, right?

No, it's a summation of the debate behind the phrase "bottle vs breast". From a few links when Googling:

- "Deciding whether to breastfeed or use formula for your newborn?"

- "Breast vs. bottle - breast milk is the perfect food for baby, with numerous advantages over infant formula"

- "Here's help deciding if you should breastfeed your baby or bottle feed with formula."

Pretty much every discussion of "bottle vs breast" is discussing "breastmilk vs formula".

> would you say that you feel the same after eating off the floor (very clean of course) vs. in a nice setting?

Would you say that a newborn baby is capable of comprehending the difference between a 5 star restaurant compared to a 3 star one? I'm not sure applying adult opinions to newborn babies is likely to achieve much.