Question for Tiktok, mostly - How does it all work?

[NotQuiteCockney]

I have a couple of questions about how breasts actually work.

1. Does supply work by circadian rhythms? Do my boobs know what time it is, and hence how much milk to make?
   
   
2. I understand the initial let-down is from the reservoirs. I can feel the reservoirs. That's all fine. But where do later let-downs come from? Are they hind-milk? Am I making it as it comes out? It comes out pretty fast, I think. I don't think it's other reservoirs, as my boobs feel entirely soft by this time ...
   
   
3. What happens when let-down happens? Why does it hurt? Are there muscles, or what?

[collision]

This is so fascinating, Tiktok. I cannot believe how much false info there is about BFing and that so called experts give out such wrong advice.

When I had ds1, he was in SCBU for a week and I had Pre-eclampsia which meant I was in hosp for a long time too. The midwives were helping me with the BFing but kept telling me to top him up with formula. Because of all the different ones helping me I kept getting different advice and got completely confused with it all. I ended up expressing most of it and gave up completely after 14 weeks With ds2 who is 11 weeks we are well away and BFing is great. All the advice I got was from you and Mears and makes such a lot more sense than first time round. Thank you.

[tiktok]

Thanks, collision, and great things are going well

NQC, you mean ducts, then. Reservoirs (sometimes called sinuses) are little 'bulbs' , part of the ducts, and at the end of the ducts; sometimes women hand expressing feel for them to give them a guide for where to 'press' and they can feel like soft, pea-sized structures. There is some controversy as to whether they actually exist, but the ducts certainly do. Ducts are not the major place for the store of milk - if you put lactating breast into Google images you'll come up with some good examples of what's inside, like \link{www.emedicine.com/ ped/topic2594.htm\this one}.

Yes, milk making equipment shrivels up and goes when it's no longer in use, and it can take a little while for the fat to return - hence mothers who have stopped bf thinking that their breasts have disappeared! But there are several studies that there is more milk with the second baby than the first, so not sure exactly what goes on....prob the equipment doesn't totally go. There is a lot of other stuff going on in the breast to make the milk, anyway, not just having the basic equipment.

[tiktok]

use this link

[Casmie]

Linkifying for tiktok

[emz31]

hi tiktok, i gave up BF a week ago,and have suffered v.painful boobs, but seem to be getting better now - a quick q. how long does it take for boobs to go back to their normal size? i had to buy a new underwired bra in a massive 32J, but i used to be a 34F - wondered if i should buy a couple of others in this new size to change or if i will soon go back to normal - please tell me i won't stay this jordan like size forever!!

[tiktok]

emz, it varies....a week is nothing, though, and you may not feel everything is really back to what it was for a few months if you have been bf a long time (the longer you have been bf, the longer it takes for normality to return. However, some women feel they are never quite the same, b/c pregnancy and time have done their work

[aloha]

Tiktok - Mosschops urgently needs help on other thread!