Low hormone in obese women linked to cutoff in breast-feeding

Lee Bowman in Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports:

Overweight and obese women tend to have a weaker biological response to their babies suckling, which might be the chief reason that such mothers are more likely to stop breast-feeding earlier than normal-weight moms, according to a nutrition expert.

Kathleen Rasmussen, a professor of nutrition sciences at Cornell University who has been studying breast-feeding patterns among overweight women for more than a decade, said overweight and obese women produce less prolactin, a hormone made by the pituitary gland that stimulates the breast’s milk glands to produce milk soon after birth.

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