The use of water-soluble or water-dispersible polymers obtainable by reaction of (a) polyalkylenepolyamines, polyamidoamines or ethyleneimine-grafted polyamidoamines or mixtures thereof, (b) if desired at least bifunctional crosslinkers and (c) monoethylenically unsaturated carboxylic acids, salts, esters, amides or nitriles of monoethylenically unsaturated carboxylic acids, chlorocarboxylic acids and/or glycidyl compounds, said component (a) having an average molecular weight M.sub.w in the range from 20 000 to 2 000 000 and the molar ratio of the hydrogen atoms on the nitrogen in said component (a) to said component (b) being in the range from 1:0.7 to 1:0.9, as a laundry detergent additive.