I wanted to end World Breastfeeding Week with a futuristic thought of breastfeeding….kind of.
How do you feel about men breastfeeding?
Not possible? Not true.
There is even scholarly literature on the subject!
Male Lactation by Professor Patty Stuart Macadam of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto (Complete Mother, Fall, 1996, Volume 43).
Male breasts have milk ducts. Men also produce oxytocin and prolactin, the hormones you need to produce milk. This can be stimulated using lactation inducing drugs, or merely enough nipple stimulation.
The first time I heard about this was a news story about a Sri Lankan man that lost his wife in childbirth. This is what he said about how he started breastfeeding:
“My eldest daughter refused to be fed with powdered milk liquid in the feeding bottle.”
“I was so moved one evening and to stop her crying I offered my breast. I then realised that I was capable of breastfeeding her.”
He started lactating and he is able to breastfeed his daughter. It was clear that he loved her very much, and I was moved by his story.
Male breastfeeding has also been studied in other mammals….
So, as our culture changes is this perhaps going to be seen in our own society in the future?
