image by: Amy

HWN Suggests

Many women struggle to breastfeed. Scientists are starting to ask why

Breastfeeding may seem simple to the casual observer—a woman lifts the child to her breast and the baby latches on and takes over from there, right? But as mothers know, lactation is a complex process that can go wrong in any number of ways.

“It’s really a finely tuned orchestration of different hormones that are binding to their very specific receptors and driving very specific reactions,” Kelleher says. Anything that interferes with these reactions “will shut down lactation, sometimes within hours.”

Breasts only become fully mature during pregnancy, which floods the body with a cocktail of hormones that prompts the milk-making machinery to develop. Kelleher likens mammary…

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The LactMed® database contains information on drugs and other chemicals to which breastfeeding mothers may be exposed. It includes information on the levels of such substances in breast milk and infant blood, and the possible adverse effects in the nursing infant. Suggested therapeutic alternatives to those drugs are provided, where appropriate.

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