All of lactogenesis
The process begins during pregnancy
If you are expecting a baby, you've probably noticed significant changes. These physical changes breast tenderness, swollen nipples and areolas (the circle of skin surrounding the nipple) dark - are the first signs of pregnancy. Some experts believe that this color change can also be a useful aid for nursing. This is the way used by nature to help visually newborns to feed. Another sign of pregnancy: the appearance of tiny bumps around the areola, which also play a role in breastfeeding. These bumps occur, in fact, a greasy substance that cleans, lubricates and protects the nipple during breastfeeding infections.
What's going on there inside your breasts?
Perhaps more important even than this visible transformation, great changes take place inside your breasts. Your developing placenta stimulates the secretion of estrogen and progesterone, which in turn stimulate the complex biological system that makes lactation possible.
Before pregnancy, a mixture of supportive tissue, milk glands and protective fat, or adipose tissue (the amount varies among women, which is why the breasts have very different sizes and shapes) composes a large part of your breasts . In fact, your breasts tender and swollen now preparing for your pregnancy since you were 6 weeks of an embryo in the womb of your mother. When you were born, your main milk ducts all channels that carry milk were already trained. Your mammary glands did not change until puberty, a period when a stream of female hormone estrogen caused them to grow and grow. During pregnancy, these glands become even more volume.
By the birth of your baby, the glandular tissue of your breasts doubles in size, giving you larger breasts than ever.
Nestled among the fatty cells and glandular tissue is a complex network of channels, called ducts. The hormones of pregnancy cause an increase in these channels, both in number and size, then these channels bifurcate into smaller canals near the chest wall and called tubules. Each tubule ends with a small group of bags "cluster of grapes" or dimples. We call a group of cells a lobule lobules and a group of one lobe. Each breast contains between 15 and 20 lobes.
Milk is produced inside the cell, surrounded by tiny muscles that squeeze the glands and pour the milk into the ductules. Two converge to bigger channels ending in your nipple. (One can compare the nine milk ducts in each breast at every straw that would lead to the end of the nipple and would transport the milk into the baby's mouth.) The development of milk ducts is completed during the second trimester of pregnancy, which means that you can breastfeed your baby, even if premature.