As promised, we continue to publish thematic materials during World Breastfeeding Week. Today we decided to look at breastfeeding from a different angle and ask men’s point of view.
It is not uncommon for a long-awaited child to become a rival to his own father. Without noticing this, a man experiences jealousy not only because all the attention of the woman he loves is directed to the child, but also for a reason that is not spoken about out loud - this breast-feeding. Yes, yes, it is at the moment when a woman begins to breastfeed her baby that her husband unconsciously becomes jealous. Many will say that it’s not like that with us, that it’s different with us, we won’t argue. Let's just figure it out: how does breastfeeding affect the father of the family? Let's talk about this first with a psychologist, an expert in the field of relationships, Natalya Melekhina.
Natalya, how can the decision to breastfeed affect your husband?
Everyone knows that if the mother has milk, then it is necessary to feed the child, because he receives a large number of nutrients from mother's milk. Do not forget that breastfeeding helps the child develop basic trust in the world - through contact with his mother.
Absolutely every man understands this, and knows most of the points that speak in favor of feeding. In principle, there should be no resistance on the part of the husband, unless we are talking about some deviations or our own reasons due to psychological trauma in childhood.
Why might jealousy arise in this process?
An important point, one might say the reason, is the attitude of the woman herself towards her man. Jealousy is rather a consequence of the designation of a man’s position by his woman. I'll try to explain a little. When your partner no longer becomes a “husband” and “beloved”, but a “daddy” and identification occurs with a woman as a relative, then, excuse me, is sex with relatives possible?
There is another side to the coin. A woman, becoming a mother, immerses herself completely in the child. And if the husband overlooked: for example, the child fell, hit himself, she rushes at him like a fury, but the psychology of a man is such that men retain the boy within themselves, and at that moment they transfer the situation to the fact that they no longer love him, asking the question in my head: because of whom? Also, refusal of intimacy in the evening, due to the fact that “I’m very tired today, the child has exhausted me,” immediately forms in the husband’s mind a firm belief that the child is to blame. Not in the sense that it is his direct fault, but an unconscious reason for a man why he was “not loved”, something was “not given enough”. And as a result - a feeling of jealousy towards the child that he has round-the-clock access to the body that belonged to him as a husband.
What controls a man: childhood memories of his mother or a sense of possessiveness towards his wife?
There can be several reasons for jealousy, and they are all different. One of them is the internal attitudes of a man, formed, as I said above, as a result of psychological trauma received in childhood and associated with certain interactions with the mother. Maybe with spied sexual intercourse between parents, when dad touched mom’s breasts and, most often, these traumas are not realized and repressed, but are “activated” in a similar situation when his woman becomes a mother.
These facts have deep-seated consequences; if we go into them now, it will be a conversation about a wounded inner child, and this is the exception rather than the rule.
Although, the perception may be different: the whole woman is his territory and her body also belongs to him, so jealousy may arise, but in these cases it is not pronounced, because the man understands that the child is also his territory and it is absurd to compete with him.
Most men don’t talk about it, but by what actions can tension be determined?
Rarely does a man clearly understand that he is jealous of his wife’s breasts for their child. It is very difficult to understand your unconscious on your own, which is why it is called “unconscious”. It is difficult for a man to understand all these processes and he finds for himself an explainable reason or way of reacting. Here are a few of them:
- This may be a reaction to feeding a child with a breast that “belongs” to him, in the sense of the breast, but it may also be transferred to other areas of the relationship not only related to jealousy of the breast.
- There is also a reaction to a woman’s excessive, in his opinion, care and guardianship, to the fact that, in his opinion, she pays a lot of attention to the child.
- Irritability at the word “feeding” or the husband’s urgent need for help and attention precisely at the moment when the woman is determined to feed the child.
- Excessive worry about maintaining the shape of your breasts after feeding, and conversations about whether it is time to wean the baby.
I really want to warn mommies that the above signs may not necessarily indicate jealousy. After all, this may be caused by your husband's concern for you.
Is jealousy of breastfeeding on the part of men the rule or the exception?
I can say with confidence that this is not the rule, otherwise thousands of articles would have already been written about this, hundreds of books published and dozens of programs filmed. This is not yet the case, and the topic remains quite young, although relevant. Most likely, there is a separate reaction of a man to the fact that his attention is being taken away or his territory is being “encroached upon” and it is manifested in this way, because the breast is precisely what both the child and the husband have access to.
By the way, some men are not entirely pleased to kiss breasts that are filled with milk; this is their internal resistance, which may be associated with disgust, fear or other prejudices. My recommendation is don’t insist and don’t be offended, this period will pass.
So what should a woman do to save her marriage and relationship while breastfeeding?
Unfortunately, little is said about this, how a woman should behave with her husband when a baby appears in the family, but there is little secret– it is important to maintain the status of a man. This does not mean that you need to please your husband every second. I would even like to give point-by-point recommendations, like instructions, if you allow. So:
1. Do not call your husband “daddy”; do not give your husband the feeling that you are his daughter and he is your father. Phrases like: “Has Daddy eaten?”, “Is Daddy tired?”, “Daddy bored?” remove it from your vocabulary. You are not his child, and he is not your father, and with children, besides parental love, there simply cannot be any other love.
2. Do not call yourself “Mommy” when addressing your husband, something like: “Mommy is tired,” “Mommy wants to eat.” Your husband, when going to bed with you, must realize that this is his woman, whom he desires, and she is always sexually desirable to him. Do they sleep with mom? When I say sleep, I consider sexual relationships, caresses, hugs not of a parent, but of a husband and wife, tenderness between you, kisses loving friend people's friend.
3. Don’t say: “We were waiting for you...We missed you...You offended us...You don’t love us,” etc. You are separate, the child is separate. You merge yourself with the child. When your husband goes to bed with you, he feels like he is going to bed with a child. In this moment sexual relations with you or just male tenderness is unacceptable for him according to all canons. I want to repeat, this only happens on an unconscious level. It is not analyzed by a man, because it is incomprehensible to him, but in fact he has a feeling of lack of attention, tenderness and your former love.
Women who have already become mothers know how physically difficult it can sometimes be, and how tired you get during the day, and you want your husband’s attention and help, but he doesn’t give it or runs away from home in vain. It doesn’t matter where: to friends, to work, to parents, supposedly to help, but the woman begins to demand, insist, take offense, while the man resists even more.
What to do?
Everyone knows that a woman has a maternal gene, but a man does not. It is formed by the woman herself, learning how to relate to the child: through praise “you are a wonderful father”, the baby loves to play with you; through requests for help “I can’t cope without you, I really need your help”; through trusting him, trust your man to carry the baby in his arms, allow him to bathe him, walk with him, don’t stand next to him with a look of disbelief that he doesn’t change the diaper correctly, it’s better to praise him for how skillfully he copes with swaddling. And the man will want to live up to your praises and will feel involved in the child; there will be no more talk or hints about jealousy. And in intimate relationships give a man a game of words, flirt with him, turn on his imagination and he will have the feeling that he is still very much loved and desired. And it’s also very important – talk! Talk to your husband constantly, dialogue allows you not to bear grudges, do not hush up what bothers you, and talk about it, but not in the form of complaints, but in the form of communication, and then your man will have no reason to be jealous at all.
By the way, all this does not mean that you no longer call him dad or he no longer calls you mom, but only in fact. When a child turns to you and asks where daddy is, then you say where is daddy, not my husband. Remember, he is a dad only for your child, but not for you, for you he is always a beloved, strong, dear man.
Tell me, why do mothers now stop breastfeeding their child so early?
Women just don't know how to do this! IN modern society The female art of breastfeeding and the culture of motherhood have been lost. Perhaps if women gave birth throughout their childbearing lives, this would not happen: for example, when they grow up eldest daughter, she will be able to watch the mother feed the baby; the youngest will gain experience from her older sisters or daughters-in-law. Unfortunately, very often a woman who doubts herself, who actually had everything going well, begins to listen to incompetent advice and repeats the mistakes of others.
It is advisable to find a good breastfeeding advisor who has had successful experiences himself. Practical training is a necessary technique, the transfer of personal, successful experience from one mother to another is the basis and key to successful breastfeeding.
Breastfeeding is a true gift of nature to man. This gift brings health to the child and keeps the woman healthy. Breast milk is the ideal food for a baby in the first year of life. It is optimal in its composition. Better than any other cow or cow based product. goat milk Suitable for feeding a baby. Proteins, fats, minerals and vitamins are absorbed best when fed breast milk. Breast milk is made up of special whey proteins. They are distinguished by high biological value, are easily digested and absorbed. They contain all the essential amino acids, in particular cystine and taurine, necessary for the full development of the baby. It is especially important that breast milk’s own proteins do not cause allergic reactions and manifestations in the child, which we often see when using artificial formulas based on cow's milk.
Have you ever felt jealous while your wife was breastfeeding your newborn baby?
When a man sees a woman breastfeeding a child, he usually feels deep satisfaction. Dr. Hugh Smith, the original 18th-century Dr. Spock, advised women to breastfeed their children (rather than hire a wet nurse). He wrote: “I can say with complete confidence that charming peasant women who breastfeed their children seem very attractive to men. I'm speaking from a man's point of view. A man experiences deep satisfaction when he sees his beloved woman holding and feeding his offspring. In a generous mind such a sight awakens thousands of varied and very warm feelings.”
And one of the joys of breastfeeding for a woman is the radiant look of her husband when he sees the baby for the first time attached to the mother’s breast.
After a conversation with psychologist Natalya Melekhina and gynecologist Marcel Bejan, I became interested in the opinion of men, and this is what they answered to the question: “Did you experience jealousy at the moment when your wife was breastfeeding your newborn child?”
Andrey Mardar – photographer:
“When my wife breastfed, it didn’t make me jealous at all, and even the process itself made my wife feel sexy.”
Alexander Cheban – lawyer:
“I have a positive attitude towards the process of breastfeeding, I didn’t feel any jealousy. After all, this is my child’s diet, which means his health and immunity.”
Ivan Akulov – singer, composer:
“What kind of jealousy are we talking about? A child is a part of me and my wife, breastfeeding is a magical moment that I shared with my wife for 2 years. Sometimes I myself had to, let’s say, help with stagnation of the canals, so that my wife would not have mastitis.”
IN classical literature There are stories about breastfeeding fathers. How is this possible? From a medical point of view, everything is understandable and realistic. The article clearly answers the question posed in the title. opehtheme.ru
If you've read Leo Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina, you may remember the short story about an English father who breastfed his child after the death of his wife. What is this: fiction or scientific fact? Let's figure it out.
Male mammary glands
The mammary glands of a man are similar in structure to those of a woman, the difference is only in the degree of development that occurs in adolescence under the influence of biologically active substances in the blood. Death loved one- always stress for the body, often leading to hormonal surges. Prolactin, or the “motherly love hormone” as it is often called, may increase. The main target organ for this secretion is mammary gland tissue. High levels of prolactin in the blood serum - hyperprolactinemia causes the production of colostrum, the conversion of colostrum into mature milk and lactation. Thus, the story from the novel by Leo Tolstoy - real event. By the way, scientists from the British medical university claim that men's breast milk is more nutritious and richer in vitamins than the milk of a woman exhausted by pregnancy and childbirth. Laboratory tests confirm this conclusion.
And now in more detail about the “hormone of maternal love”. Prolactin - a peptide substance produced in the anterior lobe of the pituitary gland. The cause of 30% of female and 20% of male infertility is “extra” prolactin. Other symptoms of the condition: disturbance menstrual cycle, amenorrhea, lack of ovulation and infertility in women, development of giant mammary glands. In men, increased prolactin leads to decreased libido, impotence, increases the size of the mammary glands, reduces testosterone levels and leads to infertility. Hyperprolactinemia may be accompanied by persistent pain in the head, depression, sleep disturbances, and uncontrolled milk secretion from the mammary glands.
How to donate blood for prolactin?
1. Blood for prolactin levels is donated to calm state 3 hours after sleep.
2. Women donate blood on the 3rd - 5th day from the beginning of menstruation (unless the attending physician prescribes otherwise), since its level physiologically increases in the second phase of the cycle.
3. A diagnosis cannot be made based on one test; the hormone is tested several times.
A jump in prolactin in the blood can be a consequence of not only illness. Hyperprolactinemia is caused by: taking antidepressants, psychotropic substances, birth control pills, anabolic steroids used to build muscles. Elevated prolactin may also be a consequence of stress, physical activity, eating large amounts of protein foods. It increases after sexual intercourse, abortion or curettage.
Pathological (due to illness) hyperprolactinemia is observed with pituitary tumors (prolactinomas), injuries or neoplasms in the hypothalamus, renal and liver failure, chronic prostatitis in men and polycystic ovaries in women, alcoholic cirrhosis liver.
If hyperprolactinemia is detected, the doctor will prescribe the patient an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) of the brain to identify structural changes. Drugs are prescribed that reduce prolactin levels, which are taken under the supervision of an analysis. If women apply for infertility, the drug is taken until pregnancy occurs.
Science, moving forward, explains phenomena that were an inexplicable sensation many years ago. Often unique people of the last century are not completely healthy from the point of view of modern medicine.
These women are no different from us. They live and work among us.
They can be beautiful, successful, rich...
And walking down the street you will not be able to pick her out from the crowd and will not see any obvious signs indicating the role of “mother-wife”. And, perhaps, even after talking, you won’t notice anything so unusual... and yet I want to say again - “they exist!”
These girls come from families where:
- the woman acts as the keeper of the hearth and the breadwinner in one person, and the man plays the role of a “quiet, non-conflict male.” In such a family, the distorted style of the entire family structure is unwittingly shown. No, don’t think so, the man in these families also has more or less some kind of voice, but the final decision is “heard” by the mother. Not so - MOM!;
- there is an anamnesis (history) of an alcoholic family. In such difficult conditions it is difficult to know the real family values, so these children early “make a decision - “I do everything MYSELF!”, “Only I can handle it!”, “Everything is only in my (and only my) hands”...
- families where there are no men. In psychology there is such a term “Matryoshka Family”. In each generation there remain one, two, three or more women who either live together or communicate closely without having men. Men simply don’t stay there. This is how a grandmother can live who lost her husband early, but who gave birth and raised a daughter on her own (who gave birth to own life on the line and telling her daughter that “I didn’t get married again for your sake”). The daughter, living with her mother (how could she leave her mother here alone? She laid down her life!), experiencing feelings of guilt, was ultimately unable to build a trusting relationship with the opposite sex. She gives birth to a daughter in the same way (symbolically, right?) and so the third generation of women continues.
Sometimes little girls grow up and leave the Matryoshka House and get married, but they still cannot build psychologically healthy relationships with men. Their relationships are ambivalent (two extremes) or they become “daughter-wives” or “mother-wives.”
Getting out of these roles requires deep analysis and awareness.
- and various other reasons...
Some traits of a “mother-wife” in a relationship with a man can be compared to breastfeeding.
* every time a woman is ready to invest in a man like in a child, sacrificing something.
Most often - with your life. Quality of life!
When we invest in children, children reflect this and thank us.
When we “feed breast milk to an adult man,” he becomes hungrier and hungrier. More and more milk is needed!
* men next to such a woman are hungry! Hungry for everything: energy, resources, strength, ideas!
* men are helpless, weak, not independent - like newborns, only in an adult body.
Some of them, for example, spend months looking for work, while women are hunters (2-3 jobs) without investing in household chores.
Some people have been “feeding breakfast” for a long period of time, what will happen tomorrow more money(if it works), while you feed him a real breakfast and YOURSELF (you regret it, take on commercial services yourself, continue to prepare delicious hearty dinners no matter what. And if you suddenly buck, they will solder you a feeling of guilt. And guilt these women have a lot already).
Remember the film "The Princess on the Beans" with Zhigunov? A wonderful illustration of this family.
Do you want to find the prince?! - Become a princess! Queen!, and not a dairy mother-nanny.
* a particularly interesting point is that the woman is LOOKING for someone to feed. She needs a good consumer of her milk!.
So they choose (unconsciously) exactly the type of man with whom they SHOULD BE in the role of “mother”. They do not know any other, equal partnerships. No one told them about them or showed them...
Do you recognize yourself?
Happens. There is an exit.
1. Understanding and monitoring your attempts to “feed” an adult man is already half the way. You are a woman, not a mother to your husband. The man already has a mother, she gave birth to him, raised him and contributed something to him!
Therefore, if you feel that a man has sat on your neck (literally and figuratively) then think about HOW he FOUND his way to your neck! Didn't you point it out to him?
2. Stop complaining about your man. Yes, he may be weak, dependent, Always-Where-Forgetting and absent-minded. Yes he is! And with you, he may not need to be different - YOU WILL DO EVERYTHING FOR HIM. Maybe you should look at yourself and stop?
3. Work with your fears!
LitGalla
Yes they can. In their 1896 book Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine, Dr. George Gould and Dr. Walter Pyle give several examples of men who breastfed their children. Reported cases include the story of a sailor who put a baby to his chest to stop it from crying, causing it to start producing milk. Or the story of the South American farmer who breastfed his child when his wife fell ill, or the story of the Chippewa man who began breastfeeding the baby when his wife died and was able to feed the child as a result.
And nowadays you can find similar examples. In 2002, a Sri Lankan man, B. Wijeratne, lost his wife and was left with an 18-month-old daughter in his arms. The baby refused to drink formula, so Wijeratne decided to try feeding himself. “I couldn’t bear to see her cry anymore and offered my own breast,” Wijeratne told a local newspaper. "That's how I found out I could breastfeed."
Wijeratne's case is not unique. Theoretically, all men can breastfeed because they have two necessary conditions for lactation - the mammary glands and the pituitary gland. Mammary glands, which produce milk, are present in all mammals regardless of gender and are their defining characteristic. In some species, such as mice, the male mammary glands are so underdeveloped that they cannot function. However, all people, regardless of gender, have fully formed mammary glands, milk ducts and nipples.
Of course, in order for a person to breastfeed, these glands must first be activated. In women, this process usually occurs during pregnancy, when the pituitary gland in the brain begins to produce large amounts of the hormone prolactin, which prepares the breasts for milk production.
All men secrete small amounts of prolactin throughout their lives. For example, prolactin is released after orgasm and may be associated with feelings of satisfaction and relaxation after sex. It's just that men usually have too little prolactin to allow them to breastfeed.
However, under certain psychological circumstances, the brain may require the body to begin producing this hormone. This happens, for example, to mothers of adopted babies who suddenly discover that they can breastfeed. And as the cases described by Dr. Gould and Dr. Pyle demonstrate, the same thing can happen to men in similar circumstances.
And more material:
In early September 2009, the Swedish newspaper The Local reported on a 26-year-old guy named Ragnar Bengtsson, who decided to test for himself whether the male body can produce breast milk. In other words, can a man breastfeed his children if necessary? Don’t rush to frown in disgust, let’s take a closer look at the problem.
“If the experiment is successful,” Ragnar told reporters, “it will help men become much closer to their baby.” In addition, it will be possible to breastfeed a child if a young mother, for example, gets sick or, God forbid, died.
Ragnar even created his own blog on the Internet, which contains documentary entitled "Breastfeeding Man: One Drop at a Time."
How does Ragnar do this? He takes a breast pump, applies it to his nipple and within a few minutes performs the same manipulations as a nursing mother. Three hours later - repeats. And since he is a full-time student at the Faculty of Economics at Stockholm University, he says that over the next few months he will have to use suction not only at home, but, if necessary, also in the classroom during classes.
“If I start lactation, and the milk is no worse than women’s, it will be a major achievement,” said Ragnar.
But is the male body adapted for the process of lactation? Many people think that this is unnatural! But experts say that a man may well become a nursing father, but only after he starts taking special hormones. However, Ragnar is not going to use it in his experiment medications. He believes that constantly pumping his breasts may increase the level of estrogen in his body.
Still, the most a man can hope for is a few drops of milk per hour, experts say.
He is considered abnormal
Ragnar began his experiment on September 1, 2009 and intends to continue it until early December. On September 2, it was shown on one of the most popular shows on Swedish television. After the broadcast, debates began throughout the country and abroad. Particularly heated debate was caused by Ragnar's intention to stimulate lactation publicly - in a university classroom.
“If it bothers someone, that’s their problem,” he said decisively.
Be that as it may, not everyone welcomes the daring of the future dad.
“There were many cases of harsh criticism against me,” says Ragnar. - Some people think I'm crazy.
Warmth and comfort
At the very beginning of development, the human embryo has no gender - future boys and girls have the same structure. And only after six weeks the male Y chromosome comes into play, that is, differences characteristic of a boy are formed. But by this time the future little man already has papillae.
Sigbritt Werner, a professor of endocrinology at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, believes that Bengtsson may be able to achieve something in three or four months.
-Women breastfeed after they've been bathed in estrogen for nine months of pregnancy. Thus, it takes time for lactation to begin. But if Ragnar works on this regularly, he may be able to ensure that his body begins to produce prolactin, the hormone responsible for the secretion of colostrum, she said. But at the same time she emphasized that a man can give a breast to a baby not only to feed him, but also to simply calm him down.
“If the mother is gone and the child is crying, the father may well put the child to the breast,” says Dr. Werner.
- After all, breastfeeding not only feeds, but with its help gives the baby a feeling of warmth and comfort.
Strange family
By the way, on June 30, 2009, the Swedish press talked about the original married couple. These young parents have a two-year-old child. So, in this family it is believed that the division of people by gender is a purely social phenomenon. That's why mom and dad still don't tell anyone whether they're having a boy or a girl. A child and that's it! They call him (or her) Pop, but this is not a real, but a conventional name for a baby who has trousers and a dress in his closet, and the child chooses what to wear.
“We want our child to grow up truly free,” the baby’s 24-year-old mother told the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper. - Only the one who changes the baby's diapers knows what gender he is - male or female. But bringing a child into the world with a defined gender once and for all is cruel.
A very strange position. Psychologist Susan Pinker believes that such an experiment is dangerous: if we hide basic things from children, this subsequently affects the parents themselves
- either in the form of a psychosomatic illness of the child, or in the form of his protest behavior. But Christina Henkel, a consultant on issues of gender equality, argues that there are too many stereotypes in society: a boy is initially supposed to be considered more masculine just because he is a boy. And if this is something vague, “neuter”, then the child will be treated as an individual, and not as a boy or girl.
What can you say about this? There is only one thing - it is better to experiment on yourself, and not on a defenseless child.
Nursing... fathers
But let's return to our topic. In Central Africa there is a tribe of Aka pygmies (about 20 thousand people). While mom hunts, dad breastfeeds the baby. And vice versa.
In literature - from the Talmud to classical novels - there are descriptions of men breastfeeding a child. For example, in Anna Karenina there is a short story about a child suckling the breast of an Englishman whose wife died. And we have every reason to believe that this is possible.
Back in 1896, in the catalog “Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine,” George Gulda and Walter Pyle cited several eyewitness-confirmed cases of a man feeding a child. Among them was a 32-year-old dad from South America, which was seen by the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt. This dad, due to his wife’s illness, acted as a wet nurse for five months. The directory contains information about male missionaries. While in Brazil, they were forced to breastfeed their newborns on their own because their wives became ill and lost milk.
But here is a story that many probably still remember. On November 1, 2002, FrancePress published short message about 38-year-old B. Wijeratne from Sri Lanka, who nursed his two daughters while they were infancy after his wife died during her second birth. Wijeratne tried to feed the babies powdered milk, but they just cried. Then, in desperation, the man began to put the girls to his chest. They immediately fell silent and began to suck. And soon Wijeratne began to produce milk.
Explorer and traveler David Livingstone (1813-1873) describes a similar incident that occurred in Scotland. The nursing mother died, and her husband began to put his son to his chest. To the surprise of those around him, the father was soon able to feed the baby himself.
For the sake of a career
In a 1995 article for Discover magazine entitled "Daddy's Milk," Pulitzer Prize-winning physiologist Jud Diamond wrote that both nipple stimulation and hormonal disbalance, and fasting. Such cases were seen during World War II among prisoners of Nazi concentration camps and Japanese prisoner of war camps. And our contemporary Laura Shanley claims that a man can induce lactation even through self-hypnosis. Her common-law husband David said that he would feed the child himself, and within a week his chest became swollen and milk began to ooze from his nipples.
Males of many mammal species have the potential for lactation (bulls, goats, dogs, wolves, lions, gibbons). Diamond points out that male lactation could be a social benefit in modern times. Indeed, today many nursing mothers are forced to sacrifice their careers for the sake of their families.
So similar!
Up to a certain age, boys and girls resemble each other in many ways. And only during puberty their body changes significantly - under the influence of hormones. This means that genetically, women should retain some remnants of the channels that remove sperm, and men - those that remove milk. The fabrics needed for this are in at a young age they have them, but then gradually disappear. In case of urgent need, it turns out that they can “resurrect.”
Let us not forget that in a person a huge role is played by thought, feeling, and a strong desire to help a loved one. And although men do not have a developed bust, they are still able to help the baby in emergency circumstances.
So dads, current and future, take note of this: what if it comes in handy someday?..
Evgeny Tokarev,
"Secrets of the 20th Century", No. 41/2009
On my own behalf, I can add that I heard about a case from this series back in the 80s - although it was not in Russia, Soviet newspapers wrote about it. Actually, this memory prompted Az to search on the Internet about the topic.
In Central Africa there is a tribe of Aka pygmies (about 20 thousand people). While mom hunts, dad breastfeeds the baby. And vice versa.
In literature - from the Talmud to classical novels - there are descriptions of men breastfeeding a child. For example, in Anna Karenina there is a short story about a child who sucked the breast of an Englishman whose wife died. And we have every reason to believe that this is possible.
In their 1896 book Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine, Dr. George Gould and Dr. Walter Pyle give several examples of men who breastfed their children. Reported cases include the story of a sailor who put a baby to his chest to stop it from crying, and as a result, it began to produce milk. Or the story of the South American farmer who breastfed his child when his wife fell ill, or the story of the Chippewa man who began breastfeeding the baby when his wife died and was able to feed the child as a result.
Back in 1896, in the catalog “Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine,” George Gould and Walter Pyle cited several eyewitness-confirmed cases of a man feeding a child. Among them was a 32-year-old dad from South America, who was seen by the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt. This dad, due to his wife’s illness, acted as a wet nurse for five months. The directory contains information about male missionaries. While in Brazil, they were forced to breastfeed their newborns on their own because their wives became ill and lost milk.
But here is a story that many probably still remember. On November 1, 2002, FrancePress published a brief report about 38-year-old B. Wijeratne from Sri Lanka, who was nursing his two daughters while they were infancy because his wife died during her second birth. Wijeratne tried to feed the babies powdered milk, but they just cried. Then, in desperation, the man began to put the girls to his chest. They immediately fell silent and began to suck. And soon Wijeratne began to produce milk.
Explorer and traveler David Livingstone (1813-1873) describes a similar incident that occurred in Scotland. The nursing mother died, and her husband began to put his son to his chest. To the surprise of those around him, the father was soon able to feed the baby himself.
For the sake of a career
In a 1995 article for Discover magazine entitled "Father's Milk," Pulitzer Prize-winning physiologist Jud Diamond wrote that nipple stimulation can also lead to the appearance of prolactin. Such cases were seen during World War II among prisoners of Nazi concentration camps and Japanese prisoner of war camps. And our contemporary Laura Shanley claims that a man can induce lactation even through self-hypnosis. Her common-law husband David said that he would feed the child himself, and within a week his chest became swollen and milk began to ooze from his nipples.
Males of many mammal species have the potential for lactation (bulls, goats, dogs, wolves, lions, gibbons). Diamond points out that male lactation could be a social benefit in modern times. Indeed, today many nursing mothers are forced to sacrifice their careers for the sake of their families.
So similar!
Up to a certain age, boys and girls resemble each other in many ways. And only during puberty their body changes significantly - under the influence of hormones. This means that genetically, women should retain some remnants of the channels that remove sperm, and men, those that remove milk. They have the tissues necessary for this at a young age, but then gradually disappear. In case of need, it turns out that they can “resurrect.”
Let us not forget that in a person a huge role is played by thought, feeling, and a strong desire to help a loved one. And although men do not have a developed bust, they are still able to help the baby in emergency circumstances.
Of course, in order for a person to breastfeed, these glands must first be activated. In women, this process usually occurs during pregnancy, when the pituitary gland in the brain begins to produce large amounts of the hormone prolactin, which prepares the breasts for milk production.
All men secrete small amounts of prolactin throughout their lives. For example, prolactin is released after orgasm and may be associated with feelings of satisfaction and relaxation after sex.
So dads, current and future, take note of this: what if it comes in handy someday?..