GOT MILK?: Men have all the necessary equipment to produce milk, and on occasion it can happen.
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In late 2004 the Internet Movie Database reported that Dustin Hoffman suddenly had the urge to breast-feed. Had the then-67-year-old Hoffman—who brought mainstream culture face to face with autism in Rain Man and went mano a mano with an Ebola-like filovirus in Outbreak—never quite broken character from his 1982 film Tootsie? Nope. He was just really keen to help out with his first grandchild.
Interestingly, he could have possibly lent a helping, er, breast, if he had held the suckling newborn to his nipples for a couple weeksalthough he could also have tried starving himself or taking a medication that would affect his brain's pituitary gland.
There have been countless literary descriptions of men miraculously breast-feeding, from The Talmud to Tolstoy, where, in Anna Karenina, there is a short anecdote of a baby suckling an Englishman for sustenance while on board a ship. The little anthropological evidence documented suggests it is possible. In the 1896 compendium Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine, George Gould and Walter Pyle catalogue several instances of male nursing being observed. Among them was a South American man, observed by Prussian naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, who subbed as wet nurse after his wife fell ill as well as male missionaries in Brazil that were the sole milk supply for their children because their wives had shriveled breasts. More recently, Agence France-Presse reported a short piece in 2002 on a 38-year-old man in Sri Lanka who nursed his two daughters through their infancy after his wife died during the birth of her second child.
In her 1978 book The Tender Gift: Breastfeeding, medical anthropologist Dana Raphael claimed that men could induce lactation simply by stimulating their nipples. The eminent endocrinologist Robert Greenblatt of the Medical College of Georgia concurred. But Jack Newman, a Toronto-based doctor and breast-feeding expert, insists that in order to produce milk, a hormone spike must occur. "That Tolstoy quote suggests that the father just put the baby to the breast and he would produce milk; I think that's pretty unlikely," he says. "It could be that you have this man with this pituitary tumor and he produces milk once the baby starts suckling."
Newman explains that medical disruptions involving prolactin, the hormone necessary to produce milk, have resulted in spontaneous lactation. Thorazine, a popular antipsychotic used in the mid-20th century, impacted the pituitary gland—the pea-size endocrine gland located near the base of the brain—often causing it to overproduce prolactin. If prolactin levels remained high, milk could follow. According to Newman, lactation is listed as a possible side effect of the heart medication digoxin. A pituitary tumor could also induce milk production: "It would be the same reason—increased prolactin levels&mdashin the one case drug-induced, in the other due to a tumor or some other sort of neurological problem."
In a 1995 article for Discover titled "Father's Milk," Pulitzer Prize-winning author and one-time physiologist Jared Diamond reconciles the nipple stimulation and hormone quandary, pointing out that such stimulation can release prolactin. He also notes that starvation—which inhibits the functioning of hormone-producing glands as well as the hormone-absorbing liver—can cause spontaneous lactation, as observed in survivors of Nazi concentration camps and Japanese POW camps in World War II. "The glands recover much faster than the liver when normal nutrition is resumed," he writes, "so hormone levels soar unchecked."
Males of many different mammalian species have the potential to lactate, although only one, the Dayak fruit bat of Southeast Asia, does so spontaneously. Diamond points out, however, that with the societal norm of fathers helping to rear their young, male milk production could actually be to our advantage, especially with all the career women trying to balance the demands of job and family. Why else would men still have nipples?
"Up until a certain age, boys and girls, as fetuses, are indistinguishable, really, so women retain some remnants of the vas deferens, which is the canal that sperm follows," Newman answers. "If you have no Y chromosome, then certain hormones are released that say, 'Okay, we'll set up this child's breast tissue to develop at puberty so that she will be able to produce milk.' Men didn't [secrete those hormones], so we don't usually have breast tissue."
"Actually a significant number of boys around the age of puberty do develop breasts," he continues, "so the tissue is there, but it regresses." In short, men may not have full-fledged breasts but they certainly can lactate, under extreme circumstances.
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15 Comments
Add Commentit was really interesting to know that another Sri Lankan male had the ability to actually breast-feed his daughters .... I also had a male friend of mine (probably in his early 30's by now) who could milk his breasts back when i was in Sri Lanka.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust grow up Michael, and you will be able to lactate.(Isadora).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisi think it is truly amazing idea to at least humor. men still have nipples because it is for survival of our species. Mom dies in childbirth and dad helps infant survive. Thus our species continues. HRM?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoes this mean men will have to start wearing tops?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoes it have to be a baby that stimulates the mother's milk production?
Stimulation of the nibbles by a sucking motion can cause lactation- so a machine meant to cause lactation, a partner, or an animal, like a young goat or pig, can bring about milk production. Studies have shown women can even produce milk up to twenty years later. Some women spontaneously lactate during (great) sex. So milk production is not always caused by a human child suckling for food.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisniPPles- not nibbles. Sorry.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh my, can you imagine the backlash by society? When women can't even breastfeed in public without receiving scorn, imagine how many people would call police over a dad trying to do the same.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThen the religious right will want it banned because if god wanted us to lactate he/she/it would have given men breasts, oops he/she/it did.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDaniel , to answer your question , No , you could stimulate it to get some milk and get your cookies off at the same time ... for both of you .... LMAO >>>> DUH
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisim very interested in pumping my nipples how long would it take for some results..if so can any one get back to me cliveblakejr@gmail.com
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswhat about bowtox .if i had injections to enlarge my areolas ,the bowtox weaken the tissue allowing the area to widen making larger wider areolas,more feminine,under the suction 3 x a day for say 20 mins..over say 2 months..still hoping for milk...........
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am a male who has begun to lactate. It took me 2 1/2 month of taking female type herbs (fenugreek, red clover, saw palmetto, fennel, hops, licorice root, wild yam, don quai and drink soy or take a soy supplement every day). after i felt growth i started stimulating my nipples every day and after a week of nipple stimulation i saw my first drop of milk, as soon as that started happening my breasts got bigger. every morning after i get out of the shower i leak some milk. so i am here to say not is it possible but i did it and in a relatively short time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes, there are boys who lactate as I found out years ago. We had this very skinny hairless affiminate 19 year old boy who produced milk like a woman. We understood his condition. He applied suction to his nipples but that failed. A breast pump was too awkward and eventually he breastfed two pet week old puppies in private. Completely bare bodied to the waist, the pups would latch on and suck vigorously until his nipples stood out like a woman's. Unabashed, he soldiered on with this for a year with the animals latched to his thin body and finally he won his battle. Nobody has any rights to laugh and taunt boys with this type of abnormality. It is very wrong to do so. He has a flat chest but puffy areolas and large nipples as a result of his ordeal. We don't know how he developed this in the first place.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHello Sonny b,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI myself have fairly protuding nipples and slight gynecomastia. My chest is completely hairless and I have applied rubber eye dropper suction caps to both nipples and that simulated a sucking action, resulting in the nipples to stand out fully. Nothing else has happened. Perhaps you could apply frequent sucking activity to your nipples and see.
I am a 26 years guy and my right nipple lactates. It even looks slightly bigger than the left side and keeps getting bigger. I didn't care so much but now it scares me.
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