Nursing a baby is a process of ongoing connection and physical and emotional contact; it is an interactive relationship. It is the process of nursing that is the powerful emotional factor for the interaction between a mother and her infant. Like labor, it is difficult to articulate what nursing a baby feels like.

Nursing is a physical, hormonal, emotional, and psychological experience. A breastfeeding mother has a physiological/hormonal connection to her baby that a formula-feeding mother does not. When a nursing baby is hungry, its mother feels it even if she is not near her baby. Many nursing mothers will tell about times when they were outside, or shopping, or at work, when they felt their milk let down at the same time her baby was ready for a feeding.

Mothers often wake up before their babies do in anticipation of their baby’s hunger. A nursing mother does not have to wait for her baby to cry to know her baby is ready to eat.

Breastfeeding is a physiological dance in which the partners sense each other’s next move and flow with it. Many nursing mothers keep their babies close to them, wearing them during the day and sleeping near or with them at night. This closeness enhances the synchronicity and entrainment that develops between them.

In a recent study, researchers found that the breastfeeding relationship provided protection from death in babies during the first year of life. There is a 25% higher death rate from all causes, including accidents, in the first year in babies who are formula fed. The findings were unexplainable by the value of breast milk alone. The researchers concluded that there is a package of care giving skills that accompanies breastfeeding that is not present in formula-feeding mothers. The effect of breastfeeding is greater than the sum of all its parts.The experience, the process, the whole of breastfeeding is truly non-quantifiable.

But the product, breastmilk, itself plays an important part in the process as well. Breastmilk is dynamic; it changes content continually and spontaneously in response to the infant’s needs. In essence, a mother’s body is able to adjust continually to the growth and development of her baby.

The dynamic quality of milk production is evident in the first week when the breasts produce colostrum. Colostrum is concentrated with protein and is easy to digest and utilize making it well suited to the early rapid growth of a new baby. Colostrum has many properties that protect the infant from disease.

After a few days colostrum transitions into mature milk. Mature milk consists of foremilk and hindmilk. Foremilk is thin, dilute, and low in fat. It is freely available to the infant at the beginning of a feeding and satisfies thirst. As baby suckles, the milk becomes higher in fat, satisfying hunger. Breastmilk is more dilute in the morning and higher in protein and fat in the afternoon. This is thought to help baby remain alert during the day and become sleepier at night. Mothers of premature babies have a different breastmilk composition that is specific to their preterm baby. Breastmilk changes as baby grows as well.