mom’s viral photo of healing breastmilk

As I write this article after just breastfeeding my newborn, I am in awe at how amazing the human body is…and this mom’s Facebook post of her pumped breast milk shows just how much.

Mallory Smothers photo of her breast milk shows how it adapted to fight her baby’s cold.

In her Facebook post she wrote the breast milk on the left was pumped on a night when her baby was healthy, and the breast milk on the right was pumped the following morning, after her baby was sneezing/ had gotten sick.

Smothers actually cited scientific research that argues breast milk composition changes in response to the baby’s needs, including fluctuations in the immune system of either the mother or child. A 2013 article, published in Clinical and Translational Immunology, had concluded that the health of the baby and mother alters the level of white blood cells in the milk.

“It is believed that mammary gland receptors interpret the ‘baby spit backwash’ for bacteria and viruses,” she wrote in her post, “and, if they detect something amiss (i.e. the baby is sick or fighting off an infection), mom’s body will actually change the milk’s immunological composition, tailoring it to the baby’s particular pathogens by producing customized antibodies.”

Have you mommas ever noticed anything like this with your pumped milk? Would love to hear in the comments below!

Reference:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mom-schools-the-internet-on-the-magic-of-breast-milk-in-viral-post_us_56cb8c8fe4b041136f180759