For a few days I have only seen a headline that comes to me by various means, always saying the same thing: "Babies do not breastfeed as we thought". I confess that I had not read it until now because it did not attract my attention, but look, in the end the constancy has had its fruit and I have clicked One of the links to see what they have discovered.
The result of what I have read has been as expected, and hence my headline, different from the media: scientists discover that babies breastfeed as we thought. Something like what in my town they define as "they have invented garlic soup" and in the neighboring town as "they have re-invented the wheel".
Published in the magazine Proceedings of the National Academy os Science of the United States of America (PNAS), scientists from The City College of New York and the City University of New York They claim to have solved an unknown mystery discovered in the last century.
As they say, they have seen on the ultrasound of babies breastfeeding that get their mother's milk through a combination of mechanical movements and negative pressure inside the mouth.
To see it, as I say, they have analyzed the ultrasounds of babies breastfeeding, observing how the jaw and tongue move, where the mother's breast and nipple is and what happens inside. From those videos have created a 3D computer modeling that does the same thing that happens inside the mouth and that has allowed them to see what exactly happens.
How a baby sucks
What a baby does when he takes his mother's chest is something that can be explained, that can be seen in the videos and that cannot be imitated. As much as we want, we are unable to do with the tongue the same thing that babies do, so I explain it because it is very interesting to know it and everything acquires a more incredible magical touch by saying that, that neither older children nor adults can do it if done.
When a baby opens his mouth, he takes the breast and closes it negative pressure inside. That is, it sucks so that the chest does not escape. It is windy. Then leave the tongue resting on the lower lip and begin to move the jaw with a movement that could be defined as "bicycle", something like down and up, forward and back.
The amazing thing is what happens in the language. The back of the tongue remains almost static, as if anchored in the mouth making a base (that is, the tongue does not come out and enter). The middle and front part of the tongue, on the other hand, moves like a kind of wave that goes from the tip to the back, exerting a movement that modifies the pressure inside the mouth.
That movement of the tongue, the movement of the jaw, the negative internal pressure and the ejection reflex of the mother make the milk go out of the breast and reach the throat of the baby, where you just have to swallow it.
I just didn't like how they represented it in this video, but I think it's quite visual and it will surely help you to better understand how the matter works:
Why I say they haven't invented anything
Now you will tell me "hey, it's very interesting ... I didn't know anything about this." And it may be, because many people do not know how the act of breastfeeding works and it is not that it has to be something that everyone should know.
The interesting thing for mothers is to know that children are suctiony and that if you want to remove the breast you must break that negative pressure so that it does not harm you. And the interesting thing is to know that the baby has to take the nipple and areola inside the mouth, because suck from the chest, not from the nipple. What the baby does with the tongue and know that the negative pressure exerted by the baby is -27 millibars, but that is changing because the pressure is oscillating with the movements of the tongue, it is not really important for a mother.
Now, for health professionals interested in helping mothers to breastfeed, it can be interesting, and this is something that they already explained to me in the Fedalma Breastfeeding Advisors Course, back in 2007. Then I could see ultrasound videos of babies breastfeeding at the VII Spanish Breastfeeding Congress - IHAN, in Ávila, in 2010, where they also talked about it.
Come on, that almost 7 years ago, at least, it is known how babies suck and a ratifying study is announced by hype and saucer as if something novel and impressive had been discovered.
So when they say "babies do not breastfeed as we thought", it is the same as the general population believed, or even as many professionals believed that they do not know how the issue works and who continue to say that when the baby sucks more than 10 minutes what comes out after milk is air (and people inflating balloons with their mouths, with compressors or bottles of pressurized air). But if we talk about people who are a bit informed, well no ... This is not new, I'm afraid.
Now, I don't want to discourage anyone from continuing to research breastfeeding, much less. The more you study about it, the more we will all know.
