The process of producing mother's milk
Understanding the process of developing your breast milk will help you master the female breastfeeding skill and understand why the correct position and techniques of correct breast-feeding by a child are so important. You will notice that your breasts increase in size during pregnancy, which is a natural sign that your breasts will feed your baby after birth, as your enlarged uterus fed the baby before birth. Breast enlargement occurs mainly due to the growth of milk producing glands. It is on the number and functioning of these glands that the amount of milk that a mother can produce, and not the size of her breast, depends. The difference in breast size is mainly due to the presence of fat tissue not participating in milk production, and not by glands. Mothers with small breasts produce milk no less than mothers with lush breasts.
The milk production system in your chest looks like a tree. Milk is produced by a glandular tissue resembling the leaves of a tree;Milk leaves these milking cells through the excretory ducts( branches and trunk) and enters the luteal sinuses( the roots of the tree), which are milk storage tanks. Located under the areola( nipple), these sinuses remove milk after about fifteen or twenty holes in the nipple. To effectively empty the lactating sinuses, your baby's mouth must be on top of these tanks so that his tongue can squeeze the sinuses in which milk is accumulated. If the baby only sucks on your nipple, it will get little milk, it will injure your nipple and it will not be good to gain weight.
This is how this great milk production system works. Your child's suckling movements stimulate the special nerve endings in your nipple that send a message to the pituitary gland about the need to produce a hormone called pro-lactin, which stimulates the glands in your breast to produce milk. The first milk your child receives in each feeding, front milk, low-fat, like skimmed milk. As your child continues to suck, the nerve endings in your nipple stimulate the pituitary gland to produce another hormone, oxytocin. This hormone is carried by the bloodstream to your chest and causes the elastic tissue surrounding each individual breast tissue to compress like an elastic band, squeezing out a large amount of milk and extra fat from the mammary glands into the ducts and sinuses. This last milk, or rear milk, contains much more fat and a little more protein, and for this reason it is more nutritious for the baby and has more nutritional value. The last milk is milk of growth.
Lactation reflex
When the back, or the last, milk is removed from the mammary glands into the luteal sinuses, most mothers feel tickling in the chest. A well-triggered lactation reflex is the key to good milk. Different mothers experience different sensations during lactation. Usually, the mother has a feeling of overflow or it becomes ticklish after thirty or sixty seconds or more from the moment the baby starts to suck. This sensation can occur during feeding several times and may appear in different mothers at different times and at different degrees of intensity. Women who first became mothers usually begin to notice the reflex of lactation in the second or third week after the initiation of breastfeeding. Some mothers never feel it, but they learn about it by leaking milk from the second breast, which occurs when the lactation reflex works. Since the production of milk by your body and your emotions are closely related, when you are in a good mood, it is more likely that the lactation reflex will work well. Fatigue, fear, tension and pain are the usual emotional enemies, which reduce the excretion of milk. In this case, your child receives predominantly the front, or first, milk, less nutritious and less nutritious. Because of the emotional connection between hormones and the production of milk, a frustrated mother disables the production of milk.
Demand and supply
Milk production is based on the supply and demand principle. The more your baby sucks( rightly), the more milk you produce until you both come to balance. In fact, the production of milk depends more on the frequency of application of the baby to the breast than on the duration of feeding.
Imagine the changes that your nipple and breast tissue undergo during sucking. Stimulated by the touch of your nipple to his lips, as well as the smell and taste of your milk, your baby grabs the areola of your chest with your lips, and his sucking movements tighten your nipple and areola further into the depths of his mouth. Since the tissue of your breast is very elastic, your child's tongue "milks" the areola with rhythmic movements, pulling your nipple and areola so that the flowing milk gets to the root of the tongue, into the interior of the mouth.
From the rubber nipples, the children suck the milk out differently. During feeding, the rubber nipple remains the same length, so the movement of the child's tongue and sucking-swallowing movements can differ significantly from the same movements of the child receiving the breast. In addition, if a child sucks a rubber nipple incorrectly, he is still rewarded with milk. If the baby will suck the breast in the same way as an artificial nipple, the likelihood of pain in the nipples and a decrease in the amount of milk produced is great. It is because the child confuses the nipple with the pacifier that the breastfeeding specialists are negative about giving bottles to children in the first weeks of life when they are just learning to suck properly.