How breasts make milk

Your breasts contain fatty tissue, supportive tissue and milk-making glandular tissue. Milk is made in the glandular tissue in clusters of alveoli, which look a bit like tiny bunches of grapes.

Milk ducts carry the milk from the alveoli to the nipple where the milk flows out from tiny openings.

Recognising your let-down reflex

There are signs that show your let-down has occurred:

You might have a tingling or sudden full feeling, which can be quite strong, even painful sometimes
Milk might leak from the other breast (let-down happens on both sides at the same time)
You might feel your uterus contract especially if this is not your first baby.

Some mums don’t notice any of these. But a sure sign that you've had a let-down is a change in your baby’s sucking pattern from a quick suck-suck to a rhythmic suck-swallow pattern as the milk begins to flow and your baby starts to suck deeply.

So even if you don’t have any of the signs above, look for the change in your baby’s sucking.

Often, the let-down is more noticeable in the early days or weeks, but later you may find that you don’t notice it so much. If your let-down reflex is slow to happen, there are things you can do to help.

Helping your let-down reflex

The principle of supply and demand

The more often your baby’s sucking causes a let-down and the more milk that is taken from your breasts, the more milk you will make. This is the principle of supply and demand.

Whatever your baby drinks is automatically replaced, producing a constant supply that perfectly matches their needs. If you start each feed on alternate breasts, you can be sure each breast keeps making a good amount of milk. There is always some milk sitting in your ducts.