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Concept
Lactation
Summary
Lactation describes the secretion of milk from the mammary glands and the period of time that a mother lactates to feed her young. The process naturally occurs with all sexually mature female mammals, although it may predate mammals. The process of feeding milk in all female creatures is called nursing, and in humans it is also called breastfeeding. Newborn infants often produce some milk from their own breast tissue, known colloquially as witch's milk.
In most species, lactation is a sign that the female has been pregnant at some point in her life, although in humans and goats, it can happen without pregnancy. Nearly every species of mammal has nipples; except for monotremes, egg-laying mammals, which instead release milk through ducts in the abdomen. In only one species of mammal, the Dayak fruit bat from Southeast Asia, is milk production a normal male function.
Galactopoiesis is the maintenance of milk production. This stage requires prolactin. Oxytocin is critical for the milk let-down reflex in response to suckling. Galactorrhea is milk production unrelated to nursing. It can occur in males and females of many mammal species as result of hormonal imbalances such as hyperprolactinaemia.
The chief function of a lactation is to provide nutrition and immune protection to the young after birth. Due to lactation, the mother-young pair can survive even if food is scarce or too hard for the young to attain, expanding the environmental conditions the species can withstand. The costly investment of energy and resources into milk is outweighed by the benefit to offspring survival. In almost all mammals, lactation induces a period of infertility (in humans, lactational amenorrhea), which serves to provide the optimal birth spacing for survival of the offspring.
Breastfeeding and Lactation consultant
From the eighteenth week of pregnancy (the second and third trimesters), a woman's body produces hormones that stimulate the growth of the milk duct system in the breasts:
Progesterone influences the growth in size of alveoli and lobes; high levels of progesterone inhibit lactation before birth.
Official source
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Maternal bond
A maternal bond is the relationship between a mother and her child. While typically associated with pregnancy and childbirth, a maternal bond may also develop in cases where the child is unrelated, such as an adoption. Both physical and emotional factors influence the mother-child bonding process. In separation anxiety disorder a child becomes fearful and nervous when away from a loved one, usually a parent or other caregiver. New mothers do not always experience instant love toward their child.
Breastfeeding
Breastfeeding, or nursing, is the process by which human breast milk is fed to a child. Breast milk may be from the breast, or may be pumped and fed to the infant. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that breastfeeding begin within the first hour of a baby's life and continue as often and as much as the baby wants. Health organizations, including the WHO, recommend breastfeeding exclusively for six months. This means that no other foods or drinks, other than vitamin D, are typically given.
Female
An organism's sex is female (symbol: ♀) if it produces the ovum (egg cell), the type of gamete (sex cell) that fuses with the male gamete (sperm cell) during sexual reproduction. A female has larger gametes than a male. Females and males are results of the anisogamous reproduction system, wherein gametes are of different sizes (unlike isogamy where they are the same size). The exact mechanism of female gamete evolution remains unknown. In species that have males and females, sex-determination may be based on either sex chromosomes, or environmental conditions.