Microbiology 9th Edition by Laura Black, Jacquelyn Black

Exercise 14

The parents of a 2-month-old infant delighted in taking him with them on their frequent trips to shopping malls. One of the grandmothers suggested that they leave him home, as it was flu season and the malls were full of coughing and sneezing people. The mother immediately responded that she was breast-feeding the baby, and with all those antibodies from her, he was surely protected against any diseases in the mall. Later as she sat at the pediatrician's office holding her sick baby on her lap, she expressed disbelief that he could have caught the flu. If you were the doctor, what fallacies in this mother's beliefs could you explain to her?