Mom Schools The Internet On The Magic Of Breast Milk In Viral Post

A mom's viral Facebook post is teaching the Internet about the power of breast milk. On Feb. 14, Mallory Smothers posted a photo of two side-by-side bags of her pumped breast milk from two consecutive days. The bag on the right contained milk pumped on the second day, after a night spent nursing her baby, who had started coming down with a cold. Citing a 2013 study from Clinical and Translational Immunology, Smothers offered a possible explanation for the discrepancy in appearance between the two milks. "I read an article from a medical journal not too long ago about how Mom's milk changes to tailor baby's needs in more ways than just caloric intake," she wrote. "So this doctor discusses that when a baby nurses, it creates a vacuum in which the infant's saliva sneaks into the mother's nipple." "There, it is believed that mammary gland receptors interpret the 'baby spit backwash' for bacteria and viruses, and, if they detect something amiss (i.e., the baby is sick or fighting off an infection), Mom's body will actually change the milk's immunological composition, tailoring it to the baby's particular pathogens by producing customized antibodies," Smothers added, noting that the mother of a sick baby may produce breast milk with more leukocytes. The mom also wrote that the milk on the right -- which she pumped after her baby was congested, irritable and sneezing a lot -- resembled colostrum, which is full of antibodies and leukocytes.  "Pretty awesome huh?! The hum...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - Category: Science Source Type: news