Your support people can help you with other household tasks, such as cleaning, laundry, shopping and cooking. Physical fatigue from trying to do too much can affect your milk supply. Nap when your baby sleeps to help in your physical recovery. Exhaustion can make this feeling worse. Let others do things for you. Only you can breastfeed your baby. You should put all of your energy into recovering from your delivery, breastfeeding and getting to know your baby.
Finally, you and your partner should both be patient about resuming intimacy. You may temporarily lose interest in having sex after giving birth.
This is common and can happen whether or not you are breastfeeding. You may have concerns and negative feelings about your body after pregnancy and delivery. Breastfeeding does not make you gain weight. In fact, it may make it easier to lose your pregnancy weight when combined with proper diet and moderate exercise.
We use cookies to give you the best possible user experience. By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. Privacy Policy Cookie Preferences. Error was Detected. Your browser doesn't support JavaScript code, or you have disabled JavaScript. Choose location Choose Location. Sign in or Enroll Enter a search term:. Change Location X. We've expanded your view You are now viewing all services in the Sutter Health network.
You can change your location above to narrow your view to a medical group, hospital, city or zip. Search Close Search. Breast Milk Production. Anatomy of the Female Breast The nipple and areola the dark area around the nipple enlarge and darken during pregnancy. Oxytocin causes the cells around the alveoli to contract and eject your milk down the milk ducts. Let-down is experienced in numerous ways including: Your infant begins to actively suck and swallow.
Milk may drip from the opposite breast. You may feel a tingling or a full sensation after the first week of nursing in your breasts or uterine cramping. You may feel thirsty. Interference With Let-Down A variety of factors may interfere with let-down: Emotions such as embarrassment, anger, irritation, fear or resentment Fatigue Poor suckling from improper positioning Not enough time baby is actively nursing Stress Negative remarks from relatives or friends Pain in your breasts or uterus i.
That's also perfectly normal, as your body is still preparing to make milk. Perhaps even more remarkable than any visible transformation are the extensive changes taking place inside your breasts.
The developing placenta stimulates the release of the hormones estrogen and progesterone, which in turn stimulate the complex biological system that makes milk production possible. Before pregnancy, supportive tissue, milk glands, and protective fat make up a large portion of your breasts. The amount of fatty tissue is an inherited trait and varies among women, which is why breasts come in such a variety of sizes and shapes. The size of your breasts doesn't determine your ability to produce milk or breastfeed.
Your breasts have been preparing for your pregnancy since you were in your mother's womb. By the time you were born, your main milk ducts — a network of canals designed to transport milk through your breasts — had already formed. Your milk glands stayed quiet until puberty, when a flood of estrogen caused them to grow and swell. During pregnancy, those glands shift into high gear. Nestled amid the fat cells and glandular tissue are the milk ducts, an intricate network of channels.
Pregnancy hormones cause the milk ducts to grow in number and size. The ducts branch off into smaller channels near the chest wall called ductules. At the end of each ductule is a cluster of small, grapelike sacs called alveoli. A cluster of alveoli is called a lobule; a cluster of lobules is called a lobe. Each breast contains up to 20 lobes, with one milk duct for every lobe. Prompted by the hormone prolactin, the alveoli take proteins, sugars, and fat from your blood supply and make breast milk.
A network of cells surrounding the alveoli squeeze the glands and push the milk out into the ductules, which lead to the ducts. You can think of the milk ducts as individual straws, some of which merge so that about eight or nine end at the tip of your nipple to deliver milk to your baby.
Your milk duct system becomes fully developed sometime during your second trimester, so you can make milk for your baby even if he arrives prematurely. By the time your baby is born, your glandular tissue will likely have expanded significantly. Colostrum, sometimes called "liquid gold," is the first milk your body produces.
It can be clear, white, yellow, or orange, and it's often thick and sticky. During the first days of breastfeeding , your newborn will be perfectly nourished by this nutrient-rich, high-protein, low-fat, easily digestible liquid.
Your body starts making colostrum about three to four months into pregnancy, and a few drops may leak from your breasts now and then during the final weeks of pregnancy. This happens to some women as early as the second trimester. This "first milk" is produced as the cells in the center of the alveoli dissolve and flow through the milk ducts to the nipple.
Colostrum is higher in protein, minerals, salt, vitamin A, nitrogen, white blood cells, and certain antibodies, and it has less fat and sugar than mature milk. It's also full of unique disease-fighting antibodies called immunoglobulins that strengthen your baby's immune system. When you feed your newborn colostrum, it's as though you're giving him his first vaccination.
Colostrum also has a slightly laxative effect that helps a newborn clear his gastrointestinal tract of meconium — the stool that accumulated in his bowel while he was in the womb. From four weeks, the nutritional content and levels of ingredients in mature milk generally remain fairly consistent. But the composition of your breast milk can still change from day to day and feed to feed.
For example, if you or your baby are ill, your body will make antibodies to fight that particular illness, which become part of your milk. And, remarkably, as your baby begins exploring the world and putting toys in her mouth, the level of protective bacteria-fighting enzymes in your milk rises. You may notice your milk seems thicker and creamier towards the end of a feed.
This is because, as the feed progresses, the fat composition gradually increases due to the mechanics of milk moving through the breast.
The change is a gradual process. Your breasts will be fuller at the start of some feeds milk lower in fat and more drained at the start of other feeds milk higher in fat. You may be wondering what happens to your milk if you continue breastfeeding long-term. Can your body really keep producing such high-quality mature milk for months and months, or even years? Even between 11 and 16 months, around half of her daily calorie intake will be from milk. So relax in the knowledge that you can both continue to enjoy the benefits of breastfeeding for many months to come.
Human milk composition: nutrients and bioactive factors. Pediatr Clin North Am. Cells in human milk: state of the science. J Human Lact. Comparative proteomics of human and macaque milk reveals species-specific nutrition during postnatal development. J Proteome Res. Amino acid profiles in term and preterm human milk through lactation: a systematic review.
The possible role of human milk nucleotides as sleep inducers. Sometimes she may only need to suck for a few minutes, while at other times she may need to suck for longer. Breastmilk changes throughout the feed Early in the feed, the milk has a lower fat content.
As the feed goes on, the fat content of the milk rises which satisfies the baby's hunger. A baby who is allowed to finish the first breast, so that he feeds until he comes off by himself before being offered the second breast, receives the higher fat milk.
At times your baby may be satisfied with just one breast, at others he may also want the second side, or even a third. By switching which breast you feed from first, you will ensure each breast keeps making a good amount of milk.
0コメント