We need the right cultural information to help us breastfeed

Our breasts are remarkably resilient when making milk for our baby. There is an ancient genetic coding deep inside every cell of your body and breasts which knows what to do - how to make the milk your baby needs, how to respond when your breasts get sick or sore.

But because we're humans, whose genetic coding is fundamentally shaped and awakened by cultural knowledge, we also need the right cultural (that is, health system!) information flowing in to activate our many millions-year-old genetic potential.

For example

• We need to know how to switch on our baby's primordial mammalian reflexes

• We need to know that our breasts need frequent and flexible breastfeeds or milk removal to build production

• We need to know what to do when mechanical pressures cause nipple pain

• And we need to know to offer the affected breast first and continue with frequent, flexible feeds when our breast becomes inflamed.

We are often let down by the cultural information being given to us

Unfortunately, our breasts are often let down by the culture around us. Our health system blind spots bring new, particularly modern complications into the life of your working breasts.

And that aside, even though most women's milk production is robust in response to their baby's needs, for some women things go wrong anyway, in a way that is completely out of our control. It's become clear that metabolic changes and even our body's shape when we are teenagers, again influenced by sociocultural factors which are outside any teenage girl's control, impact upon our breasts when they are developing, which impacts upon our capacity to breastfeed our babies.

Yet in the big picture, our breasts have 310 million years of evolution behind them, and are remarkably resilient in the way they nurture our babies, and respond to and recover from problems. This includes the extraordinarily sophisticated mammary immune system which switches on to heal breast inflammation.

The photo at the top of this page is of human DNA.

Recommended resources

Five ways to help prevent breast inflammation when you're lactating

Seven steps for when your milk-making breast develops a painful red lump

How Jessie recovered from mastitis