It's amazing how much milk can separate within the boob!

[SarahBear]

So I expressed a little off today which I haven't done in a long time. It seemed SO watery! Violet hasn't been nursing much (if at all) during the day, and I wonder if this is why it seemed so thin. I know that there really isn't such a thing and foremilk and hindmilk and that the reality is, milk seems thinner at first because it separates and the fat sticks to the sides of the milk ducts. But does it really separate out that much??? It was a step away from water, basically! I know it separates out that much in a bottle in the fridge, but it seemed REALLY watery straight out of me!

OK, I just expressed off a few drops and it looks normal. Violet just sucked me dry, so anything that I get out, shouldn't have been in there long enough to separate. Craziness...

 

[AnneD]

Mine starts out like water when I express.

So the whole thirst-quenching foremilk and fatty hindmilk is BS, then?

 

[SarahBear]

Mine starts out like water when I express.

So the whole thirst-quenching foremilk and fatty hindmilk is BS, then?

Yes it is. I mean, when your milk separates inside the breast, it probably functions that way, but if your milk hasn't had a chance to separate, it is just milk. So is having a "supply."

 

[bananaz]

Mine starts out like water when I express.

So the whole thirst-quenching foremilk and fatty hindmilk is BS, then?

I wouldn't say it's BS. The lipid content of milk at the end of a feed is, on average, 1.5 to 3 times greater than that at the beginning of a feed. There isn't some magic point at which foremilk turns into hindmilk though, it's a continuum. Also, the difference in fat content is going to be more or less dramatic depending on feeding intervals, time of day, mom's physiology, etc.

 

[SarahBear]

Well it's BS in that your body doesn't actually produce two kinds of milk. What happens is that because human milk is not homogenized, fat sticks to the walls of your milk ducts and... Well think of it this way: when you pump milk and let it sit in the bottle, the fat sticks to the walls of the bottle or floats to the top. You can see the more watery part in the bottle as well. This is what happens inside your breast. Only difference is, you don't tend to shake your boobs before feeding, like you do a bottle!

But you're right in that, functionally, it's not BS as the milk comes out non-homogenized.

 

[sue_88]

Mine starts supers thin & water, almost clear then goes to bright white almost thick!

When I pump 4oz it easy has 2cm of fat on top! I love looking at it

I'm a food scientist, and hate the way the UK food industry pisses about with food so much so seeing raw untreated natural human milk makes me go "ooooooooo"

 

[Noo]

I wouldn't say that it is BS - The fore-milk (ie, the bit that comes first) tends to have a higher level of lipase and lactose than the hind-milk which is richer in fats. I wouldn't say that it is 2 separate milks though as it comes from the same place - More the process of extraction

 

[AnneD]

Ah. I actually had a midwife telling me how long one needs to feed to use up the foremilk, so that the baby then gets the hind milk.

 

[Noo]

Ah. I actually had a midwife telling me how long one needs to feed to use up the foremilk, so that the baby then gets the hind milk.

Yup... Feeds need to be sufficient enough to have drawn through the watery stuff and start getting the thicker stuff. It just takes longer to get that stuff.

 

[SarahBear]

Ah. I actually had a midwife telling me how long one needs to feed to use up the foremilk, so that the baby then gets the hind milk.

OK, now THAT is BS. There is no one answer. It all depends on the composition of the milk, how long it has been between feeds, how fast the let down reflex and ejection of the milk is, and how efficient the baby is at nursing!

 

[Katteh]

It isn't that it separates as such, it is just that the milk let down when your boobs are full comes from nearer your nipple and it doesn't collect as much of the fat from the ducts on the way past, then the longer baby feeds for, the further back the milk comes from and therefore more fat is collected.

When I express a full feed, it is like water at the beginning and much creamier at the end.

 

[susannah14]

It's definitely not BS. I've never heard it claimed that it's two separate kinds of milk. It's a sliding spectrum of lipid and lactose composition.

 

[Noo]

Yup, when I express I definitely get very watery milk then it becomes much thicker and almost greasy towards the end.