Breast Milk for Adult

Quite interesting? If you read my previous writing, I was once telling about prescriptions that the doctor gave to me during my pregnancy since I did not like milk at all. Well… except for yoghurt and yakult (it is a Japanese probiotic milk-like product made by fermenting a mixture of skimmed milk with a special strain of the bacteria Lactobacillus casei Shirota).

It happened last December when Maxwell still breastfed by me (he stopped breastfeeding at 13 months old and he stopped it by himself). I was traveling to another island for three days and during that time Maxwell was still 9 months old. I was so upset at the beginning for not being able to bring him along with me (Cane did not allow me). I missed him so much on the way and missed to cradle him in my arm, fortunately I was so busy with the work that it killed my yearning for several hours. When the evening started to crawl and I was left alone in my chamber… I could feel all the pain of being lonely as well as being full. I got a short headache and felt that my breasts were full and leaking at the same time. I need direct breastfeeding since I was not prepared for weaning yet.

When it was not possible for direct breastfeeding, I started to express (artificially remove and store) my milk in the bottle. A manual massage was applied at the beginning (for 1 minute) and then followed with a breast pump. Before expressing, I used warm towel to compress both breasts and this would stimulate both breasts to produce more milk, a warm shower would work as well. A 15 minutes express could produce 150 ml milk and I did one time at 18.00 and again at 24.00. After expressing the milk and put in the bottle, I realized that there was no fridge to freeze the milk and I could not bring the milk back to Jakarta within 3 days.

I stared at the milk and observed carefully that there were two different colors that showed in 2 different bottles. The first bottle which filled with the first express were almost white transparent which is called foremilk (the watery milk coming from a full breast). The second bottle, with later express showed thicker white color which is called hindmilk (the creamy milk coming from a nearly empty breast). My curiosity tickled me that night and I wondered why Maxwell loved this milk. Every evening he eagerly waited for my return and would cry out loud if I did not breastfeed him as soon as his eyes spotted me. I did not like milk but willingly to take a try for enhancing my experience.

I took a sip and I love it… it was so sweet and smell like my baby. I drank from both bottle and felt no different taste between one another only the hindmilk felt thicker. On the day two, I took different meals that used more ingredients in it. People said that the taste of the milk will be different from one meal to another, so I took a try to fulfill my eagerness. In the evening, I did the same thing again and I found out actually there was no different with milk taste no matter what kind of meals that the mother took during that day, but there was a different in the aroma produced that night, still I love the taste.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breastfeeding it is said that the research shows that between the ages of 12 and 24 months, 448 milliliters of human milk provide these percentages of the following minimum daily requirements: Energy 29%, Folate 76%, Protein 43%, Vitamin B12 94%, Calcium 36%, Vitamin C 60%, Vitamin A 75%. If human milk contains such benefit, why adult did not consume it as well instead of having cow’s milk?

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