How Breastfeeding Works

The breastfeeding process works on the principal of positive feedback. As an infant suckles at a mother’s breast, a message is sent to the mother’s brain that results in the production of a chemical that stimulates the production of milk. The ability for a mother to continuously produce milk depends upon this feedback cycle not being interrupted. Interruptions in the cycle can occur when the message to the mother’s brain is disrupted by:

• an infant sleeping longer than 4 hours

• poor suckling by the infant

• bottle feeding