As we have explained on other occasions, the production of breast milk depends directly on the suction that the baby performs on the woman’s breast : when suckling, the baby stimulates a couple of hormones and these in turn activate the mammary glands.
A new video allows us to “enter” the mother’s body, and thanks to it we can observe the entire process that is responsible for the production of breast milk .
Created and published by Design Cells (@design_cells on Instagram), an account dedicated to making health illustrations, the breastfeeding video quickly went viral within days of being posted.
As we mentioned at the beginning, when a baby sucks at the breast, a complex machinery is set in motion that stimulates the production of oxytocin in the woman’s brain, which, when it enters the bloodstream, activates the mammary glands to produce breast milk, such as and as the video shows:
Lactation is the process of production and release of milk from the mammary glands of the breasts.
When your baby sucks, it stimulates the nerves that tell your body to release prolactin and oxytocin. Oxytocin causes muscle contractions that expel milk from the alveoli through the milk ducts, and prolactin causes the alveoli to produce milk.
The video, which has more than 1.7 million views on Instagram , is the latest in a series of animations on reproduction, including one that shows the path of the sperm, and another in which we can see quick how a pair of cells transform into a baby:
Both the production of milk and the gestation of a baby are two incredible things that the human body is capable of doing , and thanks to these videos, we can understand and learn a little more about both processes.
