how to produce breast milk

we all know that it’s a bad idea to drinkalcohol when you’re pregnant – it can cause problems with the pregnancy and with thebaby’s health. but have you heard from people that it mightbe okay, or even helpful, for a mother to drink beer while breastfeeding? some people say drinking beer supposedly helpsa mother produce milk, also known as lactation. so is there any truth to it? well, maybe. but different scientific studies seem to disagree. lactation relies on two main hormones: prolactinand oxytocin.

prolactin helps trigger cells in the mammaryglands to synthesize milk and fill up little sacs called alveoli. on the other hand, oxytocin causes the let-down,or milk-ejection, reflex – where the cells surrounding the alveoli contract, basicallypushing out the milk. so most of the research on beer, or any alcohol,and breastfeeding focuses on these two hormones. some experiments have found that prolactinlevels might increase thanks to one of the components of some beer: barley. a carbohydrate in barley has been shown tomake lab animals, like rats and ewe -- ewe being female sheep, not, not you, you arenot a lab animal -- it makes them synthesize

more prolactin. so that could possibly mean that barley, inalcoholic or non-alcoholic beer, could have a similar effect in new mothers, and the extraprolactin might stimulate some more milk production. but that’s a lot of “maybe”s in thatsentence. another study with 13 lactating women foundif they drank alcohol – in this case, alcohol mixed with orange juice – the levels ofprolactin in their breast milk changed. if the woman’s blood alcohol concentration,or bac, was rising when the milk was pumped, prolactin levels were higher. if her bac was falling, prolactin levels werelower.

and despite those changing prolactin levels,the women consistently expressed less milk after drinking alcohol. so, all these prolactin studies don’t reallytell us much about beer and breastfeeding. but what about the other hormone: oxytocin? well, some research has shown that drinkingalcohol may decrease oxytocin levels and inhibit the milk-ejection reflex. like one study which focused on 12 lactatingwomen, who breastfed their babies within four hours after drinking alcoholic or nonalcoholicbeer. the researchers found the babies drank lessmilk if their moms had an alcoholic beer – possibly

because of an inhibited milk-ejection reflex. and on top of all this hormone stuff, as longas a lactating woman has alcohol in her bloodstream, a tiny fraction of it will enter her milk– and that could affect how infants breastfeed. basically, lactation is just complicated,and there’s still a lot that scientists don’t know about how beer – or any alcohol– affects breastfeeding. more research, with more participants, isdefinitely needed to understand how all these hormonal changes work together. and because of that, if you’re a new orexpectant mother, and you want to have some beers, you might wanna talk to a lactation consultantor a doctor for breastfeeding advice.

thank you for asking, and thanks especially toall of our patrons on patreon who keep these answers coming. if you’d like to submit questions to getanswered, or get some videos a few days early, you can go to patreon.com/scishow. and don’t forget to go to youtube.com/scishowand subscribe!