Lactation and Maternal Health: What Can We Learn from an Animal Model?

Observational studies have shown that mothers who do not breast-feed are more likely than those who do to develop hypertension, visceral adiposity, diabetes, and heart disease. However, the lifestyles of mothers who opt to breast- or bottle-feed can differ in many other ways. To experimentally study how lactation affects maternal health, researchers randomized mice to natural or curtailed lactation. In the latter group, pups were removed immediately after birth.

Two months postpartum, nonlactating mice had twice the visceral adiposity of those that lactated normally. In addition, the blood pressure of nonlactating mice was >25% higher and significant reductions were noted in cardiac output and ejection fraction.