Making Breast Milk: How does your body produces milk

by Sherryl QuianzonApril 22, 20200 Comments
I believe that every woman is mystified when it came to understanding of Making Breast Milk. Well, you are as baffled as I was about the makings of this gold liquid, allow me to fill you in on the basics.

ROLE OF YOUR BREASTS

To begin with, unlike the pancreas, which is responsible for producing bile, or bone marrow, whose responsibility is to produce blood cells, there is no single organ that makes milk. Breast milk is actually formed in small groups of cells called alveoli that are located inside your breast tissue.  These alveoli are surrounded by fat and connective tissue, which protects them like bubble wrap. By the time that the milk is produced, it then travels down the milk ducts and is stored behind your areola. After that, your baby starts latching on your areola, and the breast milk is released through the holes of your nipple. Yes, I did say “holes”. There is not just one hole in your nipple, as you might have thought. In fact, a nipple has many tiny holes and somewhat resembles a food or kitchen tool strainer.

Colostrum

How does my body produces milk
Cuddling, Days Old Baby

  • This is a thick yellowish substance leaking from your nipples as early as forth month of pregnancy. If your neurotically wore a bra every minute of the day and night in hopes of avoiding saggy breasts, you may have noticed some flakiness around your nipple area. Now as you’ve noticed, even early on in pregnancy, milk production had begun. That is why your breasts have doubled in bulk like warm bread dough.
  •          It is much richer than breast milk. It is loaded with protein, antibodies, vitamins, and minerals and is buttery yellow in color. It helps your baby get rid of this first meconium poop, a tar-colored discharge.
  •         This will be gone after few days of nursing.

Transitional Milk

  •          This is the very thin and white in color.
  •           This should only take a day or two to come in.
  •           You will know it has arrived when the size of your breast, doubles.

Breast Milk

Breast Milk
Bottle Feeding Breast Milk

  •          This comes out after several days.
  •           It is absolutely the perfect food for your baby.
  •           It is quite watery since it contains less fat than cow’s milk, and is a bit bluish in color.
  •           If you try to taste it, it has a sweet yet subtle hint of cantaloupe flavor.

ROLE OF YOUR BRAIN

At the point when your child suckles, it makes an impression on your brain. The mind at that point flags the hormones, prolactin and oxytocin to be discharged. Prolactin makes the alveoli start making milk. Oxytocin makes muscles around the alveoli squeeze milk out through the milk ducts.

When the milk is discharged, it is known as the let-down reflex. Indications of milk discharge are:

·         Shivering, fullness, dull hurt, or fixing in the breast (but a few mothers don't feel any of these sensations).

·         Milk trickling from the breast

·         Uterine squeezing after you put infant to the breast during the first few days any after birth.

To urge your milk to discharge, try these strategies:

·         Discover approaches to unwind, for example, heading off to a quiet spot or try breathing deep.

·         Spot a warm pack on your breast before breastfeeding.

·         Back rub your breasts and hand express a little milk.

After you've been breastfeeding for some time, the let-down reflex can occur for some reasons, let us say when you hear your baby cry, or you see or think about your baby. It may sometimes happen on the same time that you usually breast feed your baby even if your baby is not around. Actually, it happens to me most of time. For example, when I ran errands for work or just going out of the house, I feel the let- down during the time I put my baby to sleep while holding him around my arms. Sometimes, it signals me to go home right away because it makes my breast full that I really need to let my baby latch on it. This is actually an invisible connection or tie between me and my baby. Like when I get too busy, I hardly check what time is it already but the let-down reflex reminds me more that it is time for me to go home.

ROLE OF YOUR BABY

Your baby helps you to produce milk by suckling and expelling milk from your breast. The more milk your baby drinks, the more milk your body will produce. Frequent breastfeeding or milk expulsion like 10 to 12 times or all the more every 24 hours, particularly in the first few days and weeks of your baby’s life, helps you build a stable milk supply.

Your milk depends on your baby’s needs. Each time your baby feeds, your body knows to make more milk for the next feeding. Therefore, the amount of milk you will produce totally depends on the amount of milk your baby feeds. Hence, the more the baby latch, the more milk you produce. This is actually a game of supply and demand.

In my experience, I always put my baby beside me and I keep on encouraging him to latch on my breast. Honestly, during the first few days of my baby’s life, it was very challenging and quite exhausting because he really doesn’t know how to latch on my breast. My milk just kept on spilling all over his face and there’s no way he can drink it. I felt terrible those days because I know that he must be drinking those colostrum, a gold liquid, because it is very healthy for him. It took us around a week, to actually make him properly latch on my breast. So when he did learn to latch on his own, I have noticed that my milk kept on flowing. It’s because every time my baby feeds, he always feed like an hour and more. Then after that, he just rest for a while and then go back to latch again. It was really good since I stored a lot of milk through pumping since my breast got really full.

So, Making Breast Milk, is really a good tandem of the mother and the baby. And always remember the supply and demand game. The more the baby feeds, the more the mother’s body produces milk.

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