One Thing You Didn’t Know About Breastfeeding
Breastfeeding is one of the most intimate, warmest, and most memorable moments for a woman every time she becomes a mother. Breastfeeding means feeding a human being who is not yet able to fend for himself.
It is to provide it with the necessary defenses against pathogens and to strengthen an emotional relationship that began in the womb. In You Are Mom we would like to talk to you about this and emphasize one thing you did not know about breastfeeding.
Breast milk … more than a food
Breast milk is the best food a child can receive. Although there are other recommended supplements when a child is intolerant to milk or his mother does not produce enough to support him … To this day, breast milk has no replacement.
The first yellowish liquid that comes out of the breast: colostrum together with milk, immunizes the baby against the pathogens to which it is exposed every time it leaves the womb. But in addition to providing the necessary food and defenses, the action of breastfeeding, sheltering and caressing a child while breastfeeding contributes to their well-being on a psychological level.
As a mother, you should know that emotions, both negative and positive, are transmitted through breast milk. If you breastfeed your child in a quiet place where both you and your baby feel comfortable, you will be making him happy.
On the other hand, if you are impatient, you feel nervous, self-conscious about some looks, uncomfortable … you will be transferring the same thing to him. Then he will cry, get foolish, and be upset during his time of sleep and rest.
One thing you didn’t know about breastfeeding
Up to this point we have surely agreed that breastfeeding is dedication, responsibility, but above all, it is love. And love is precisely where we wanted to go. Did you know that the hormone that makes you love your child so much is also responsible for the milk leaking from your breasts?
Oxytocin: the molecule of love and lactation
As we have just told you, the molecule of love, as oxytocin is popularly known , is one of those responsible for the attachment you have with your child, even before you know it. This hormone also plays a key role in lowering milk to your nipples whenever your child needs food. Here’s how this happens.
Oxytocin in mother’s love
When a woman is about to give birth, her brain increases the production of oxytocin. This hormone makes the love you feel for your baby stronger as the days go by. During childbirth, the mother’s brain continues to produce a large amount of oxytocin, so immediately after birth the maternal instinct is enhanced.
The high levels of oxytocin guarantee a love at first sight that displaces pain, fatigue and any other state that is not attachment, protection, affection and love towards the newborn.
Oxytocin in milk ejection
When the baby sucks the nipple, the mother produces a nervous stimulus that reaches her brain where oxytocin is released. The hormone travels through the blood vessels to the breasts. Place where the muscle cells stimulated by it make the breast tissue contract and the glands begin to secrete milk.
Due to the large number of times that the nipple is stimulated by the child, this mechanism becomes a reflex action; In other words, some mothers just feel their baby crying their milk lowers. Although this is not the most common, it has also been the case of women who, when observing children on television or watching and listening to others on the street, start to leak their nipples.
Mom, breastfeeding is a unique time in your life.
As the years go by and you see another mother breastfeeding her child, you will remember with nostalgia the pleasant moments that you and your “puppy” spent together. Enjoy then this warm moment that nature gives you and live every minute as if it were your last. The latter is something that you probably knew but that in you’re a mom we always like to remember.
