What is breast milk made of

Once your baby is born, their suckling releases hormones in your body that cause your breasts to make and release milk. If you are concerned that your milk has not come in or that you are not making enough milk, speak with WIC breastfeeding staff.

Milk production occurs within the alveoli, which are grape-like clusters of cells within the breast. Once the milk is made, it is squeezed out through the alveoli into the milk ducts, which resemble highways.

The ducts carry the milk through the breast. The size of your breasts does not affect your ability to breastfeed. Women with small breasts make the same quantity and quality of milk as women with larger breasts. When your baby suckles, it sends a message to your brain. The brain then signals the hormones, prolactin and oxytocin to be released.

Prolactin causes the alveoli to begin making milk. Oxytocin causes muscles around the alveoli to squeeze milk out through the milk ducts. After you've been breastfeeding for a while, the let-down reflex can happen for many other reasons, like when you hear your baby cry, or you see or think of your baby. It also can happen at the time of day you usually breastfeed your baby, even if your baby is not around.

No worries if you don't notice any changes in your breasts during pregnancy, though. 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. Find the answers here. Share this content.

What is Breast Milk Made of? In fact, the stem cells that your newborn receives from your breast milk may even act as the foundation for their own internal building and repair system Many healthy fats, such as omega-3 fatty acids, are also prevalent in breast milk and optimize crucial brain growth and development, especially in preterm babies who may have missed specific markers from the final trimester of pregnancy As vital as healthy fats, stem cells, and leukocytes are, they are only a tiny fraction of what breast milk is made of.

How is Breast Milk Different from Formula? The main carbohydrate in breastmilk is lactose. Micronutrient content. The average Australian diet usually provides breastfeeding mothers with sufficient quantities of vitamins and minerals.

There are few vitamins or minerals for which some breastfeeding mothers may need supplementation to ensure their breastmilk has adequate concentrations. Vitamin B Breastfeeding mothers who are vegan and perhaps vegetarian may be deficient in vitamin B 12 and hence require supplementation to ensure their breastmilk concentration is adequate. If you think you may be deficient in vitamin B 12 , speak with a doctor or dietitian.

Vitamin D. Exposure to sunlight reduces the risk of vitamin D deficiency. However, the safe level of exposure to sunlight for children is unknown. Breastfed babies who are most at risk of vitamin D deficiency include those who are dark-skinned, whose mother is vitamin D-deficient and who receive too little sunlight eg by living at higher latitudes. Speak with a doctor or dietitian if you think you or your baby may require vitamin D supplementation. Bioactive factors.

Breastmilk contains various bioactive factors eg living cells, antibodies, cytokines, growth factors, oligosaccharides, hormones. Bioactive factors are elements which have an effect on biological processes and thus impact bodily functions or conditions and ultimately our health.