Above Rubies Daily Encouragement Blogs
WE ARE BLESSED BEYOND MEASURE
Further thoughts to my post yesterday regarding Breastfeeding or Chestfeeding.
To be a suckling mother is a beautiful blessing. When a mother nurses her baby, God releases in her the hormones of oxytocin and prolactin. Both are both very special hormones which are a boon and blessing to the mother.
Oxytocin is released by the pituitary gland and is the hormone that stimulates the mother’s let-down or milk-ejection reflex. This incredible molecule of motherly love is called by many other different names:
The stress relieving hormone,
The calming hormone, even reducing blood pressure, cortisol levels, fear, anxiety, and staving off psychological as well as physiological problems,
The life hormone,
The love hormone,
The cuddle hormone,
The bonding hormone,
The empathy hormone,
The trust hormone, and even
The bliss hormone!
Who wouldn’t want to have this hormone? Every mother should want to get as much of it as she can. It’s a great way to live instead of filled with anxiety and stress. And this is the blessing God gives to every nursing mother. The secret: keep nursing your baby as long as you can!
Prolactin is another wonderful hormone. It’s a very strong protective hormone. They have done studies to find that when they inject this hormone into a rooster it becomes “clucky” and begins to mother the chickens. A female animal nursing her young in the wild will fight to death any other animal that comes near her young.
The release of prolactin when nursing causes the mother to become more motherly and very protective of her baby.
Many scientific studies also reveal that lengthy nursing of babies is a deterrent to breast cancer and other female cancers. And this is apart from all the blessings to the baby.
O yes, Isaiah 66:11 calls it “glory.” God’s way is always the best way.
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
Panting: one of Katie m. Berggren’s lovely paintings.
