Lactation: Psychology verses Physiology
(Part IV)
As pleasant as it may be, the physical techniques of breast and nipple stimulation are just methods of sending signals to the brain; the secret successfully inducing lactation and increasing milk production is in how the brain interprets those signals!
I have long puzzled over why one woman can induce lactation and easily achieved a full milk supply, while another woman in a similar situation, struggles to maintain a few drops. Both women may be using the same techniques, yet the results are so different. Every woman who is in good health, living in a modern, well nourished society should be able to achieve a 100% success when inducing lactation. There is no reason that any woman whose breasts are healthy, should fail to reach a full state of lactation. Every avenue of my research into why some women fail to reach a full milk supply has, each time, led me back to the brain: how her subconscious mind interprets her need to lactate.
Before we go too deeply into how a woman's subconscious interprets her conscious desire to lactate, as well as the signals from her body, the question of, "what is a full state of lactation?", needs to be addressed. A full state of lactation is not a preset amount of milk: rather a full state of lactation may be defined as a woman's ability to increase her milk supply to meet the nutritional demands of a growing infant. A woman who can easily increase her milk supply to meet the demand, whatever the demand may be, would be considered to be in a full state of lactation. Whereas a woman who is stuck at a plateau, unable to increase lactation, (regardless of the volume of milk she is producing), would not be considered in a full state of lactation. "Fully lactating" is a woman's ability to increase her milk supply, rather than reaching a predetermined volume. An example: a woman who has induced lactation and increased her milk supply to 20 ounces per day would likely be considered in a full state of lactation. However, a woman who is producing 3 or 4 ounces of milk, and has the ability to easily increase her milk supply to meet an increased demand, could also be considered fully lactating.
Understanding how a woman can reach a full state of lactation begins with understanding how her brain controls her body. Rather than trying to understand the abstract thinking of how the subconscious switches on the mammary gland, it may be helpful to study more obvious body functions which are controlled by the brain. Let's look at an example of how a woman walks across a room and sits in a chair. Her only conscious thought may be, I want to sit down. To accomplish her conscious desire to sit down, her subconscious must make thousands of calculations, as to how far and how long to contract the muscles in her legs and feet to accomplish the task of walking to the chair. None of the complex calculations by her subconscious are recorded in her conscious memory; walking across the room and sitting in a chair is just something that happened in response to a conscious desire. Her conscious mind experienced a desire and her subconscious mind did the work to make it happen; it is the same with a woman's conscious desire, (or need), to lactate and the subconscious mind switching on the mammary gland.
The subconscious mind may be compared to a computer that operates a machine, using only ROM, (Read Only Memory), and no hard drive. The computer follows a set of preprogrammed instructions to accomplish it's task, without recording anything that it has done. In a similar manner, our subconscious mind controls most of our body functions, including lactation. Just as a computer may control a machine, our subconscious goes about the business of operating the body and controlling our body functions, without recording how it is doing it. The subconscious has no permanent memory, and as a result, we have no conscious memory of how or why something happens inside body; it just happens in response to a conscious desire.
The subconscious is the most basic of our mental functions, and follows a preprogrammed set of instructions to accomplish it's job. The subconscious has no ability to reason on it's own, and can only respond to input from the conscious mind and signals, (via the nervous system), from the body. When a signal is sent to the subconscious that a body function needs to be performed, such as lactating, it will respond according to it's existing program, or instinct. It is a basic instinct of a woman's subconscious to lactate only when the signal, (or need), is to feed an infant. If stimulation of the breast and nipple occurs for any other reason, it is the basic instinct of a woman's subconscious to *not* switch on the mammary glands, even if milk producing hormones are present in her bloodstream.
Often if a woman's breasts and nipples are being stimulated, without an obvious need to feed an infant, her subconscious will interpret those signals as a desire to experience pleasure and turn on the pleasure related receptors in her brain, while completely ignoring the mammary glands. She will experience pleasure and sometimes even engorgement of the breasts, yet no milk will be produced. Her subconscious is following what it believes to be the correct response to a particular physical and/or emotional stimulus. If the subconscious is misreading signals from a woman's body and/or her conscious desires, milk will be produced either at levels lower than desired, or not produced at all. No matter what physical techniques of stimulation or medication is tried, the subconscious can only respond with what it is programmed to do.
The wonderful thing about the human mind is that the subconscious is re-programmable, (or re-trainable). When the subconscious recognizes that it's response to a particular physical or emotional stimulus is incorrect, it will change it's course of action to closer meet the needs and desires of the woman. It is not unusual to encounter a woman whose milk production has suddenly increased, and the only thing that she changed in her inducing regimen, or technique, was her mindset. She changed the way she focused mentally on her need to lactate during her stimulation or nursing sessions. If a woman focuses on the physical and emotional pleasure of stimulation and lactation, her subconscious will give her physical and emotional pleasure; however, if a woman focuses on white milk flowing from her nipples, her subconscious can be trained to make white milk flow from her nipples! By using the subconscious mental process to your advantage, it is possible to experience physical and emotional
pleasure, and milk production.
For many women, just knowing the way that she focuses her subconscious could be holding her back, may be enough to overcome the problem. Other women may need take the time to learn how to refocus, and connect with their body through their subconscious. I am going to start looking into meditation, contemplation and perhaps self hypnosis as a way for a woman to gain control over her subconscious, and ultimately her body. The mind can overcome many obstacles that can inhibit or block lactation: once a woman gains control over her mind and body, anything is possible.
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