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Home › Articles › Breast is Best › Hooray for the Human Breast!

Hooray for the Human Breast!

A Look at the Amazing Milk Factory

By Melissa Clark Vickers, IBCLC

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What a marvelous thing the human breast is! It produces all of your baby's nourishment for at least six months, provides protection from myriad diseases and calms the fussiest of babies. It works on the principle of supply and demand, producing as much milk in just the right composition as baby needs at the time. Let's take a look at this ingenious factory:

Think Grapes
If you look inside the breast, underneath the skin and embedded within fatty tissue, you'll see what looks like a cluster of grapes with the stems joining to form larger branches all pointing toward the nipple. Each of the grapes is an alveolus (plural: alveoli), and it is here that milk is made from blood. Tiny muscle cellsthat contract to squeeze milk droplets into tubes or ducts that lead to larger branches surround each alveolus. As these branches come together, there are wider spaces, or sinuses, just behind the nipple that allow the milk to pool. When baby latches on, he'll compress those sinuses and be rewarded with a mouthful of milk shooting through many tiny, pore-sized openings in the nipple.

In addition to the alveoli and the milk ducts, the breast has a network of nerves that transmit signals back and forth from the nipple to the brain that drive the whole factory. When Baby begins sucking at the breast, a message is sent to the brain to trigger the release of oxytocin and prolactin. Oxytocin makes the muscle cells around the alveoli contract to squeeze out the milk. This is the same hormone that causes the uterus to contract during labor. Prolactin causes more milk to be produced and also causes a wonderful feeling of well-being. Nicknamed the "mothering hormone," prolactin relaxes Mom and brings out the best in her, helping her cope with the stresses of parenthood.

Invaders, Take Warning!
In addition to the milk-producing "equipment," the breast is an antibody factory as well. It can begin producing these disease-fighters in response to whatever Mom has been exposed to, thereby protecting her baby from getting sick. And the breast makes antibodies not only to illnesses Mom has been exposed to but also to whatever Baby has been exposed. The simple act of nursing sends complex signals back and forth between breast and Baby to fight these invaders.
 
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