Lactation

Lactation or the secretion of milk and its discharge from the breasts in suckling is the function of the breast.

This may be considered in two phases:

        1: The secretion of milk

       2: Its discharge from the breast.

There is a little secretion in the breasts from the sixteenth week of pregnancy which keeps the ducts open and ready to function. After the birth of a baby a thin fluid, called COLOSTRUM, which is rich in protein, is secreted during the first 2-3 days;then a free flow of milk is established, gradually becoming 

Mature milk. A hormone of the anterior lobe of the pituitary gland prolactin is important in stimulating the secretion of milk.The maintenance of this secretion is controlled by hormones from the anterior pituitary and the thyroid glands.A nursing mother needs encouragement,especially with a first baby,to establish normal lactation.This does not depend only on the suckling efforts of the infant but also on a mechanism in the breast which by contraction expels milk from the alveoli about breast feeding, can influence lactation, but with knowledge, practice and relaxation, this relationship between mother and baby can be happily established.