Friday, August 3, 2012

Montgomery's gland

The following portion of an article was found on the Best for Babes site, a wonderful resource I often turn to. 

"The odor from Montgomery's gland stimulates appetite. And it likely helps the baby find the nipple, get positioned and latch, with the odor serving as a road map to where they need to go. These behaviors appear to be specific to the species, as human babies don’t respond to the scent of cow’s milk (for example).

So think about what we know about self-attachment or breast crawl. The newborn, un-bathed baby licks their hands, which smell of amniotic fluid, which in turn smells like the secretions from the Montgomery glands. They can use the taste and smell of those secretions, plus their preference for contrasts and circles (hmmm, what dark circle is near?) to navigate their way to the nipple and facilitate the latch.

That also means that that baby needs hands free- not wrapped up to prevent scratching the face. Take the gloves off! And that mom and baby should be together skin to skin. It appears that things were designed to be that way."


I don't love that they use the word "odor", I suppose I'd suppose "scent" or "smell", but whatever. I learned about this just before the CLC training and then while there, we talked about it in depth. Its fascinating and such a reminder that we women were meant for this sort of things. Our bodies rock! Oh, and babies are pretty great and smart, too.  :)

For more detailed information, go here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2761488/?tool=pubmed

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