Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. was a physician who became a well-regarded American poet in the 19th century. I can tell he was a smart man just by this quote from one of his books:
We are willing to give Liebig’s artificial milk when we cannot do better, but we watch the child anxiously whose wet-nurse is a chemist’s pipkin. A pair of substantial mammary glands has the advantage over the two hemispheres of the most learned Professor’s brain, in the art of compounding a nutritious fluid for infants.

– Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894), p. 276 of Medical Essays
A “pipkin” is a …read more

Everyone warns new mothers about the sleep deprivation, yet it still comes as a shocker because you simply can’t fathom what it means to get up every couple of hours with a newborn night after night. Luckily, breastfeeding provides a secret weapon for sleepy mothers: the hormone cholecystokinin (CCK).
When the baby suckles, the mother releases CCK. The hormone infusion relaxes her and readies her to drift off to sleep again. If mother and baby are co-sleeping, the mother might even drift off before the baby finishes the feed! What a peaceful experience compared to getting up to prepare a bottle, …read more