Can a woman get an orgasm from breastfeeding? Enlighten your motherly self about why you may get an orgasm from breastfeeding by reading this article.
Some topics are just not easy to talk about, and experiencing feelings of sexual arousal while breastfeeding falls into this taboo category. However, articles on this subject have been written, and medical experts’ explanations will help reassure you that these feelings are natural and quite common. 33% to 50% of women have reported orgasms from breastfeeding. In fact, these erotic feelings are the result of the effect of the hormones prolactin and oxytocin.
Orgasm from Breastfeeding
Prolactin stimulates your breasts to produce milk. It also keeps you feeling happy, and as your baby nurses, nerve cells in your breast signal your brain to release oxytocin. Oxytocin, in turn, causes the milk glands in your breast to contract and eject milk from the nipples. It also lowers blood pressure, relieves anxiety, and has a calming effect. This role of the hormone oxytocin in childbirth and breastfeeding is a well-known fact.
In recent years, research has led to the finding that oxytocin is also linked to male and female behaviour, orgasms, and bonding. Oxytocin promotes sexual receptivity and heightens sexual activity and is also referred to as the ‘love hormone.
During breastfeeding, oxytocin is responsible for the ‘milk ejection’ or ‘let down reflex,’ the same reflex that comes into play during orgasm too. In fact, both breastfeeding and orgasms have certain similarities, like a uterine contraction, nipple erection, and milk ejection reflex. Similar to the foreplay before intercourse, breastfeeding initiation involves nipple stimulation and breast caressing.
A point to note is that breasts have always been an object of sexual desire and breast stimulation leads to sexual arousal. Hence, a baby sucking at your breast brings out the same erotic feelings. Orgasm also causes the release of oxytocin in the body.
Takeaway
Mothers are sometimes physically and mentally stressed out with the responsibility of caring for a baby that they do not have erotic thoughts at all during the first few weeks or months after childbirth. Feelings of insecurity about their postpartum body also play a large role in inhibiting such thoughts. Some women experience such erotic feelings soon after they establish a breastfeeding pattern, while there are some who experience it much later or do not at any time.
Women hesitate to mention these feelings to their lactation experts or health providers as they are embarrassed to do so. But it is important to remember that there should be no guilt involved in having such feelings and experiences as they are completely normal.
