An article shared by a fellow mom on Facebook offered some fascinating insight into breastfeeding and I thought I would share it with you. It explained that when a baby suckles at its mother’s breast, a vacuum is created. And within that vacuum, the infant’s saliva is sucked back into the mother’s nipple, where receptors in her mammary gland read its signals. It’s like a sort of baby spit backwash and it contains information about the baby’s immune status. “Everything scientists know about physiology indicates that this is one of the ways that breast milk adjusts its immunological composition. If the mammary gland receptors detect the presence of pathogens, they compel the mother’s body to produce antibodies to fight it, and those antibodies travel through breast milk back into the baby’s body, where they target the infection.” I think this is very cool. Don’t you?
PINKPOPPYPETAL 