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Milk fetishism is a paraphilia in which pleasure is experienced from lactation, breastfeeding, and suckling. Many people feel it is one of the few "female centred" fetishes, though some resist the term fetish, thinking the word has negative connotations.

Interest

Interest in adult breastfeeding sometimes occurs during the post-partum weaning period. During this period, some women may miss the pleasurable feelings they get from breast feeding infants. The behavior is sometimes increased after a partner communicates being aroused and contented during breast feeding. Other times, couples find that lactating breasts are an issue when recommencing sexual relations after pregnancy, and may incorporate it into their sexual practices. Some women, who have never had children, become interested in adult breastfeeding to experience the sensations associated with breastfeeding. Men may discover that pleasure is received when trying to relieve a woman of the discomfort of an excess of milk in her breasts. Some men report a desire to experience adult nursing because of not being breastfed as infants, while others claim it is because they were breastfed for several years as children.

Assisting lactation

It can be hard to produce milk when not pregnant. Some women take medicine, herbs, massage their breasts with their hands, or use breast pumps to make milk. Many drugs may promote lactation as a side effect. Generally, it is thought that repeated stimulation of the nipple by suckling for approximately ten minutes, several times per day can induce lactation. The most common of these is Domperidone though some women may begin expressing colostrum because of birth control medications. Manual and oral stimulation is needed in addition to Domperidone to begin lactation

• There is disagreement as to the dosage that may best promote lactation. It has been reported that e 2 10mg tablets 3 to 4 times daily or or 20mg 3 to 4 times daily are ranges. With stimulation in conjunction with Domperidone, some women report light results in two to five days. A study by Heykants (1) has shown that absorption of domperidone increases from 13% to 23% if domperidone is given ninety minutes after eating. This means that the drug will act most effectively when mothers take it an hour and a half after eating. Using Domperidone in conjunction with birth control pills is not necessary. A typical course for lactation induction is approximately six months as the dosage is lessened. By then, regular suckling will be enough to maintain flow.

• Some women complain of headaches as the total daily dose nears a total of 80. Others report dry mouth and gastro-intestinal upset.

• Nursing women may need to consume an additional 500 calories to maintain weight in addition to increasing fluids intake.

• The drug Reglan (trade name, scientific name Metoclopramide) was used to promote lactation but is now suspected of causing movement disorders including: tardive dyskinesia, acute dystonic reaction and extrapyramidal symptoms (EPS). Reglan is the trade name but it also has the generic name.

• Herbs associated with lactation stimulation include: Alfalfa, Anise/Aniseed, Astragalus root (Huang-qi), Blessed thistle, Borage leaves, Brewer's yeast, Burdock, Chasteberry/Vitex, Comfrey, Dill, Essential fatty acids, Fennel, Fenugreek, Linsseed/Flaxseed oil, Goat's rue, Hops/Beer, Ignatia, Lactuca virosa, Marshmallow, Milk thistle, More milk tincture, Mother's milk tea, Nettle, Red clover, Raspberry, Vervain.

• Common inexpensive electric pumps (Gerber and Evenflo) are inadvisable for inducing because they do not give strong enough stimulation. Generally they are ill-built and clumsy to operate. Hospital grade electric pumps (Medela and Ameda-Egnell) perform better but are very expensive.

• Hot compresses on the breasts may also assist, in addition to oral and manual stimulation, in relaxing the breasts to help achieve the milk letdown response.

Experience

While some couples feel the need to nurse is purely sexual, others take comfort in a view that the act is loving and romantic. Women sometimes report feeling pleasant uterine contractions. Some may even attain an orgasm from the suckling of their nipples.

Though most freely admit it is at least partly a sexual practice, many say it is far more than just sexual given the necessary closeness needed to maintain flow. The level of interdependency needed in such a relationship is, according to practitioners, a necessary condition, and a consequence of, including lactation in a partnered relationship. Couples who engage in adult breast feeding report that it leads to a very close, and mutually dependent, relationship because a frequent schedule of breast feeding is needed to keep milk flowing, and to prevent too much milk in the woman's breasts. Those couples who find the pleasure purely from the quiet intimacy may refer to themselves as purists in adult nursing.

Some women report that breast feeding in an adult relationship invoke more feelings of intimacy and fulfillment, helps make them feel more feminine, and may even cause experiences similar to the higher state of consciousness achieved in yoga or meditation. These feelings may be attributed to a change in the balance of a woman's body chemistry, particularly in the balance of chemical neurotransmitters in her brain. The oxytocin released by lactation is sometimes referred to as the bonding hormone and may promote a sexual response in women. The prolactin hormone that is stimulated by lactation suppresses the sex drive, though the effects of the hormonal change differ among women.

Adult Nursing in Society and Between Women

A complaint of practitioners is that adult nursing has almost no presence in publishing when compared to other sexual practices or paraphilia, though it is promoted amongst some members of the lesbian community as part of the butch-femme diad, where the femme nurses her partner. They articulate that women's sexual psychlogies undergo the object transformation that male sexual identity does not. The mother as the archetype of love remains female for the male throughout his life; for women, as children they objectify the mother but in time become the mother figure themselves. This can cause internalized whore-madonna conflicts in some women which some practitioners believe, adult nursing can ease. However, the urge to experiment with nursing between women is not limited to homosexual couples. It is not uncommon for heterosexual women to experiment with nursing.

See also

• Breast fetishism
• Milkmaid
• Sexual fetishism
• Breastfeeding

External links

• Erotica Readers hosts an ongoing discussing about lactation amongst adult partners
• An online iscussion about increasing lactation
• Kellymom.com's articles on using herbs to increase lactation
• An article about the subject

Communities

• Sweetmilk, a moderated online discussion group with a database of members searching for others interested in adult nursing and lots of information on how to induce lactation
• Lactopia, a moderated online discussion group for Australians who are interested in Adult breastfeeding relationships
• The Society for Nursing Couples, an online discussion group where partners in an adult nursing relationship meet for support
• Nursing Singles Looking Group, an online discussion group for singles seeking nursing partners
• Dommes Who Nurse Their Subs, an online discussion group for female dominants who lactate

• Breast fetishism
• Milk