I remember struggling with ambivalence about continuing or finishing breastfeeding my baby.  He seemed pretty okay with the idea of stopping, having reduced to one feed a day.  But I wasn’t sure I was.  My hormones may have been why I was so sad about finishing!  Oxytocin (the love hormone), prolactin (the bonding hormone) and beta-endorphins (the feel good hormone) are all released when I breastfeed.  Here’s more about beta-endophins and oxytocin…

We all know that we love endorphins, because they feel good!  But did you know that during labour, your body produces huge amounts of endorphins?  (you also produce endorphins during sex, pregnancy, and when stressed).  These help you to feel good, feel “high” or spaced out, feel co-dependent (like you really need some-one and they need you) and helps you deal with pain (much more effectively than morphine, as it happens).  So again, nature has equipped us with the right hormonal balance for birth to be not only comfortable, but positively enjoyable.  But we do need the right environment and mind-set.  For birth to go “au naturel” we need our limbic system to be activated, which means shutting off our “rational brain”.  The best environment for this is privacy, and familiarity.  Feeling observed or being in a strange place do not help your brain to go into automatic mode.  So either have a home birth, or make plenty of hospital visits before the big day!!!  Oh – and if you want to find tips for releasing more endorphins, for shutting off your rational mind and for maximising that “spaced out” feeling, then a HypnoBirth can help!

Oxytocin is the hormone of love (it is released during sex and orgasm too, in both men and women!).  It is important for all three stages of labour (opening cervix, pushing baby out and expelling placenta), and for breastfeeding.  As well as mum, baby also has high levels of oxytocin when he or she is born.  The production of oxytocin carries on after birth – it is enhanced by eye to eye contact, skin to skin contact and by the baby’s first suckle!  So you really can fall in love with your baby as soon as he or she is born, and baby also falls in love with you! This is down to the natural flow of oxytocin. 

Things that can get in the way of natural oxytocin release include environment and medication.  The best birthing environment is similar to the best sex environment.  Would you be able to orgasm in a hospital room with an open door?  If not, then you may also struggle to birth easily in the same environment, because your release of oxytocin would be affected in both cases.  The second factor which can affect oxytocin release is the use of synthetic oxytocin, which is what is in the drip when you get induced, and what is in the injection to help the placenta out.  This synthetic hormone does the job of getting the uterus to contract, but it does not have the same powerful “in love” effect which is such a good high and good pain killer.  Not only that, but it suppresses the body’s natural release of its own oxytocin, which is why induction tends to hurt a lot more! Could it also be why some people really struggle with those first moments of breastfeeding?

If this interests you, you can find out more by reading Dr Sarah J Buckley’s wonderful book “Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering”, or book antenatal sessions at The Hale with Mia Scotland and Sophie Fletcher, of Mindful Mamma.