Question

Historical references as well as current anecdotal reports suggest that under very unusual circumstances, males can breastfeed. The Talmud, a book of Jewish law, discusses a man whose wife died and who had no nourish the child with his own body. The writings of other religions report similar tales. In agriculture, male goats can receive hormonal treatments and make milk. Do you think that it is possible for a human male to breastfeed, and if so, what conditions must be provided to coax his body to produce a secrete milk?

Answer 1

Male lactation is the production of milk from a male mammal's mammary glands in the presence of physiological stimuli connected with nursing infants.

Under certain unusual circumstances, men are able to lactate. There have even been rare cases reported where a man was able to produce milk to feed the baby of a mother who died in childbirth.

However, inducing lactation in a male is extremely difficult, and even if successful, is unlikely to result in production of more than very small amounts of milk.

The hormone responsible for milk production is prolactin which produces during pregnancy from placenta also.

Men have the basic breast tissue needed to produce milk, but even with a prolaction surge caused by frequent contact with an infant or stimulation from a breast pump, they don’t have nearly as many milk ducts as a female does to begin with, so significant milk production is very unlikely to occur.

The technical term for spontaneous production of milk in a man is “galactorreah”. When this occurs, it usually indicates a medical problem such as a testosterone deficiency, hyperactive pituitary gland, liver cirrhosis, or as a side effect from certain medications.

So, I think it is very tiresome task to produce adequate amount of milk from males to breast feed the baby even with hormonal treatment such as prolactin.