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Changes in the body and its organs during lactation: nutritional implications
Ciba Foundation Symposium
|January 1, 1976
Summary
Lactation places significant demands on mothers, mobilizing body tissues and increasing food intake. This can cause physiological changes, like altered body composition and organ growth, particularly in rodents, with long-term effects on liver cell count.
Area of Science:
- Physiology
- Reproductive Biology
- Comparative Mammalian Studies
Background:
- Lactation imposes greater physiological demands on mothers than pregnancy in species with dependent young.
- Nutritional requirements during lactation are met by tissue mobilization and increased food intake, leading to maternal body alterations.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the physiological changes in mothers during lactation, focusing on maternal body composition and organ adaptation.
- To compare the effects of lactation on maternal physiology in different species, particularly rodents and humans.
Main Methods:
- Review of existing literature on maternal adaptations during lactation.
- Analysis of physiological changes, including tissue mobilization, organ growth (liver, gastrointestinal tract), and body composition shifts.
- Examination of nutritional influences on these adaptations, especially protein and energy intake.
Main Results:
- Lactation leads to significant maternal body alterations, including fat and calcium mobilization.
- In rats, lactation causes substantial growth of the gastrointestinal tract and liver, with increased cell number and size.
- Post-lactation, organs like the liver reduce in size but retain an increased cellularity in rats that have nursed litters.
Conclusions:
- Lactation induces profound, potentially permanent, physiological adaptations in mothers.
- Rodents exhibit significant organ remodeling during lactation, suggesting a strategy to meet high metabolic demands.
- The extent to which similar adaptive changes occur in humans remains an open research question.