Apparently Human Males Can Lactate Too

Thought lactating was exclusive to women? Think again.

Lactating has long been described as a strictly female characteristic. Females give birth to children and females feed them milk from their breasts. It sounds like a sound equation, except there is a little glitch. Apparently, males can lactate, too. But how is this possible?

It all boils down to the hormone prolactin. Both male and female human bodies have it, but the quantity is not the same. The pituitary gland must produce an excessive amount of prolactin to stimulate the breasts to create milk. This usually occurs after pregnancy and this is why females have been doing it for so long. But there are a few written instances throughout history that suggest that even human males are able to do it. One anecdote from Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina tells the tale of a baby suckling on an Englishman while on board a ship. There have been numerous other reports, ranging from a father raising his two baby daughters after their mother passed away while they were infants to a man serving as a wet nurse in his village in South America.

However, it is a fact that male lactation doesn’t happen fast and it doesn’t happen easily. You either have to have been starved or have some sort of an anomaly in order for this to occur. Still, the possibility sparks an interest for the scientific circles because it might solve a lot of problems with food scarcity in the future and it might relieve mothers of at least one task during motherhood.

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