05/23/2015
Our bodies are designed with such great detail. Awesome!
Woah, check this out!
As many of you know, I've been tracking the development of breast milk over the course of my daughter's nursing period, to see if I can notice any structural changes as time goes on. I've been calling it The Liquid Gold Project, and have been updating my findings on the blog.
Well, today, I decided to take a look at foremilk and hindmilk to see if I could compare them. Check this out, as you can see, the difference is incredible!!!
On the left, you see an image of "foremilk". This is the watery, high lactose containing milk that quenches our babies' thirst. On the right is the high fat "hindmilk". They begin to mix together upon "let down", giving our babies the perfect mix of building blocks for brain development and calories and fat for energy and growth!
A note on "foremilk" and "hindmilk": According to La Leche League, in between feedings the fat in the milk accumulates on the sides of the milk ducts within the breast.At the beginning of the next feeding, much of the milk will be watery in nature. However, as the feed continues, even after just a very short time, the fat gets pulled away from the walls and into your baby! This happens the most effectively, during "let down" when the milk is coming out faster. This is when you can see the creamier "hindmilk".
Out of necessity, I happened to have these on the same slide, as I was running out of slip covers. Amazingly, these two milks separated themselves into two distinct halves on the slide!!!
This is SO cool. Every time I look under the microscope, I find something new to completely marvel over. Our bodies are AMAZING!!!
(If you're interested in checking out what breast milk looks like as compared to formula, and learning about the composition of each, you can find more information on that part of the project, here! http://www.thescientificmom.com/2015/03/the-liquid-gold-project-monitoring.html )
