A commentary by Hudson
Reprinted with permission from The StarGate Libraries
Continuing my previous post about inducing lactation without having to become dependent on drugs/medications like Domperidone. Or in other words, inducing lactation naturally.
As I have pointed out in the past, every woman whose breasts are healthy and undamaged by disease, trauma or surgery, has the ability to successfully induce lactation, (and produce at least enough milk to breastfeed an adult), regardless of whether or not she has ever been pregnant. This is also true for women who are post-menopausal, and in most cases, regardless of their age. The key to physically inducing lactation is good breast health and hormonal balance. The sole purpose of the female mammary gland is to produce milk, and given the proper hormonal balance, healthy breasts will lactate without the use of drugs. Whether milk is the result of pregnancy and childbirth, or the result of having been induced, the ability of the female breast to physically produce milk is genetic and unwavering. Lactate and breastfeed is what women do.
With this said, creating the physical conditions necessary to successfully induce lactation is the easy part: the hard part is creating the *mindset*. It sounds easy enough, a positive mental attitude, commitment and a burning desire to lactate, and voila, you have milk; however, if mindset was just attitude, commitment and desire, every woman would have milk, which as we all know, just isn’t the case.
You may ask, “If mindset isn’t attitude, commitment and desire, then what is it?” Mindset is not what you consciously believe as a woman: mindset is who you are as a woman! What you believe consciously, and who you are subconsciously, are sometimes two different things. When there are conflicts between one’s conscious beliefs and one’s subconscious identity, there are always problems.
I created this group toward the end of 2001; however, even before that, (as early as 1996), I became interested in how to induce lactation. Not just how to induce lactation, but how to produce enough milk to effectively breastfeed without being pregnant. Early on in my research, I ran onto an article about Margaret Mead, (American anthropologist, 1901-1978), and her research into the social development of adolescents in primitive cultures. I became particularly interested in her field studies of adolescence in New Guinea in 1935. In her research papers, she apparently made a note of seeing newborns being taken from their mother at birth, and given to a close female relative, (such as sister/sister-in-law), to breastfeed and raise as her own. The intriguing part of this notation was, the child was not given to a woman who was breastfeeding at the time; rather, the child was given to a woman who had recently weaned a child and was dry at the time. What was puzzling, since a newborn cannot wait weeks or months for the surrogate mother to relactate, the woman must have started producing an ample supply of milk almost immediately.
Considering the difficulty women have today relactating, (and inducing lactation), I could not see how this was possible. How can a woman relactate in just hours? As I read more about inducing lactation and wet nursing, (over a period of years), I begin to find other instances where newborns were taken from the mother at birth, and given to a close female relative in extended families. Before affective birth control and commercially marketed baby formulas, this practice was not limited to just primitive cultures: this practice was also common in early European and American cultures. And there was a reason.
Before reliable birth control, families were often quite large, and when a woman gave birth to a baby, she may have already been breastfeeding two children. And being the case, the birth mother simply could not produce enough milk for the third child. The solution was to give the child to a close female relative in the extended family who could produce enough milk: i.e. a sister/sister-in-law who had recently breast fed, but was not suckling a child at the time. In the past, children were more often, not raised by individual couples independent of the extended family as we do today; rather, children were raised by extended families.
When a woman stops breastfeeding, her milk dries up quickly; however, the alveoli in her mammary glands, (milk producing cells), remain viable for months. Lactation, (and producing enough milk to breastfeed), depends on fully developed milk producing cells, proper hormonal balance, and mindset. These women in the past who found it so easy to relactate, were able to do so because of their subconscious self identity. From birth, they were raised to be wives and mothers, and mothers lactate and breastfeed. It wasn’t what they believed consciously, it’s who they were subconsciously. They didn’t *try* to relactate, they relactated because that was the solution to their problem.
There was no effort, no struggle, they simply produced milk when it was needed because of their subconscious self identity. They’ve relactated so easily because no one ever told them they couldn’t!
I’m going to end this post here, and in my next post, discuss why it was so easy for women in the past to relactate, (or induce lactation), and why it is so difficult for women to do the same today. Considering the difference between subconscious female identity in the past and subconscious female identity today, there is more to being a woman than just breasts and a vagina.
With Regards, Hudson