In men and women, oxytocin is released during orgasm. In women, it helps the uterus contract during labor and after the birth, and it triggers the letdown (milk-ejection) reflex that transmits breast milk through the milk ducts toward the nipple for breastfeeding. The hypothalamus works with the pituitary gland in the brain to regulate oxytocin levels.
Oxytocin is used in the synthetic form Pitocin to induce labor, and it can be used as a nasal spray to induce letdown during breastfeeding. Thomas W. Hale, Ph.D. warns in Medications and Mothers’ Milk that “chronic use of intranasal oxytocin may lead to dependence …read more

Singer Gwen Stefani raves to USA Today about being a mother to her six-month-old son Kingston James McGregor Rossdale (with husband Gavin Rossdale) and talks about how she prays that she can have another baby. It must be all those positive mothering hormones from the breastfeeding:
“I’m still nursing,” she says, “and I think it gives you superhuman powers.”
It’s true that breastfeeding promotes emotional health in the mother, resulting in less postpartum anxiety and depression than found in formula-feeding mothers.
Author Barbara Behrmann explains:
In fact, prolactin and oxytocin, the two main hormones involved in breastfeeding, have earned the warm and fuzzy nicknames …read more