How is breast milk formed?

When born, breast milk is the best food for babies. This nutrient source is formed right from the beginning of your pregnancy and gradually develops when your baby is born. How does that process take place?

During early pregnancy, the mother's breast began to show signs of change from outside and inside. This is the necessary transformation to create a baby's later nutritional source. What are those signs? How is breast milk produced? The information below will answer these questions for you in the most specific way.

How does a woman's breast change?

If you're pregnant, you'll notice a big change from inside the breast. Physical changes, such as the breasts, become soft and large, and the nipples and areola are changed as one of the earliest signs that you have conceived and are forming breast milk.

Experts have believed that the color change of the areola helps babies recognize their mother's breasts more, but there is no evidence to support this. Infants' eyes are actually only closed to breast-feeding, so they cannot see the areola clearly.

Breast milk is the best food for babies and young children.

Another signal is that breastmilk is slowly forming to prepare to breastfeed when the areola nodules become larger and clearer, usually during the first trimester. These bumps are called Montgomery 's glands . It releases a nipple lubricant, prevents dryness, cracking and infection when a mother feeds her baby.

The process of forming breast milk

The most significant change is not the visible changes but what happens inside the breast . The development of the placenta stimulates the release of hormones estrogen and progesterone , thereby stimulating a complex biological system that makes milk production step by step.

Before pregnancy, support tissue, milk glands and protective fat form a large part of the breast. The number of adipose tissue varies among women and that is why women's breasts come in many different sizes and shapes all over the world.

The breast will become swollen from 6 weeks old. The main milk ducts - a network of channels designed to transport breast milk - have been formed since you were born. The milk glands will lie still until puberty, with a sharp increase in estrogen levels, making them grow and grow. During pregnancy, these routes turn to developing at a higher rate.

Until birth, breast tissue will expand significantly. This is the reason why mother's breasts become bigger than ever. Each breast can weigh nearly 700g. The tubes branch out into smaller channels near the chest wall called milk ducts. At the end of each duct is a small group like a bunch of grapes called breast follicles. A cluster of breast follicles is called a lobule. A lobule cluster is called a lobe . Each breast contains between 15–20 lobes, with a milk ducts for each lobe.

Driven by prolactin hormone, milk follicles use protein, sugar and fat from pregnant blood and produce breast milk. A network of cells surrounding the breast follicles is capable of squeezing the glands and pushing the milk into the tubes leading to a larger milk ducts. The milk tubing system will develop completely at the end of the second trimester of pregnancy, so you can have your baby breastfeed even when the baby is born prematurely.