The workings of breasts...

[suzi2]

Purely out of curiosity...

Does the supply/demand thing of breastmilk work for each boob independently or for them both as an overall hormonal thing. i.e. If I feed loads of my right and a little off my left, does my right increase in supply and my left decrease?

Also, always wanted to know how alcohol affecte letdown. I seem to be able to express much more efficiently after a glass of wine. Is that the normal effect?

well from experience I would say the supply and demand thing works separately on each breast. I ended up just feeding dd1 from one breast, and the other one stopped producing milk altogether.
now I am tandem feeding, the right one still produces more.
don;t know about alcohol and the let down, but maybe it is just making you more relaxed?

Supply and demand IME works differently on each breast - when I was pg and feeding DS still, I was only feeding from the right side - so the left started to produce colostrum! Then when he self-weaned about 5m into my pg, a couple of weeks later, my right breast stopped making milk and started making colostrum!

Also, there are women who only feed from one side for whatever reason and they can be a bit lopsided for a time while everything adjusts.

as the let down reflex is stimulated by the suckling action mainly, then it does work independently if you only have one baby to feed.

I think alcohol does effect it, you will be more relaxed and the prolactin and oxytocin hormones that play a part in releasing milk will have an easier ride through your body. Although that is not to advocate more than one unit of alcohol and BF, no no no. That's the official line anyway.

If it wasnt' so early in the morning I would look up my Australian Breastfeeding Association Community Educator notes and give you some paragraphs but you get the gist.

Harps, my right one always produced more too. Funny old world innit

Thanks. I sort of thought that's what it would be. I just really wanted to know. Fascinating things our bodies! I'm studying anatomy, physiology and pathology at the moment as part of my massage diploma and I'm so fascinated about how everything works. Besides, I still can't believe that my DS is now a strapping 20wk old becuase I make milk for him!

cool isn't it?

Suzi, it's amazing, isn't it? I found a picture of DS the other day from when he was about 24 weeks old. I could not believe how chubby he looked (he's a v slim 20mo toddler now!) - and all because my body had made milk for him - I am in awe of it, I truly am. My body's let me down so many times in the past - but producing a fluid with which to nourish another person - wow!

once i had a bit of wine after putting dd to bed and pumped and was amazed at how much, how quickly i got. so yes, i think a bit of alcohol makes pumping easier.

I read that it is very common that one side is the star performer. I wonder whether it is related to the side on which you tend to carry baby. I am lefthanded and my left boob is the winner!

Suzi - from what I have read the supply/demand thing works for each boob. If you feed more from one side, that side will produce more.
I am not sure that alcohol has anything to do with more milk or letdown. Any kind of fluid will help your supply and it is often recommended that you drink plenty of fluids before a feed or before expressing. If anything, alcohol dehydrates the body.

Definitely on each boob separately. I once knew someone who had a great big 38F size left breast and about a 32A on the other side (well, maybe I'm exagerating a tad, but that's what it looked like to the untrained eye!) because her baby just wasn't very interested in one breast and she eventually gave up trying to alternate.