Breast-feeding and Malnutrition

Sir .—Gilmore and Rowland (Journal132:885-887, 1978) report three cases of critical malnutrition in breast-fed infants. In my office (albeit in slightly milder form), this has been termed the Buchenwald-baby syndrome, a name that I would now like to suggest to others. These babies can be identified by our aide who notices that when the marasmic-appearing infant is weighed at the time of the first monthly visit, there is little comment by the mother although the infant weighs about the same as at birth. All of the mothers have a strong commitment to breast-feeding, having announced these plans during or prior to pregnancy. As noted by Gilmore and Rowland, the mothers did not seem worried, and we have noticed that they do not call us for advice during the first month of life as other primipara usually do. Although the appearance of the infants is alarming to us, the mothers are