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Don't know about herbs. But my stepmom and many other women do breast feed adopted babies usually with bottle supliments as you normally can't produce enough milk on your own.You don't have to give birth to nurse a baby — you can breastfeed an adopted baby.

It's the suckling of a child that triggers milk production, not an automatic physiological reaction that begins during pregnancy. Hormones drive the production of breast milk. Prolactin, a hormone created by the pituitary gland, makes breast milk, and if you stimulate the breast enough to increase prolactin levels, you will get milk.

Lactation operates independently of pregnancy, They are totally separate bodily functions.

Increases in the hormones estrogen and progesterone during pregnancy do help prepare a woman's body for breastfeeding by enlarging the ducts and alveoli, so it is more difficult to start the milk flowing in mothers who haven't delivered a child. My stepmom started pumping her breast 6 weeks before my sister arrived and her Dr. gave her a hormone nasal spray of some kind to increase the production of milk. Once my sister arrived she took over for the breast pump in stimulating my stepmom's milk production. My stepmom was not able to fully support my sister's milk needs so my stepmom had a soft plastic sterile pouch that had a soft flexable tubing she filled with formula and wore over her shoulder next to her breast. The tubing rested right next to the nipple so when my sister nursed she received the extra formula while still stimulating my stepmom's breast and getting breast milk. My sister was breast fed for 8 months that way and my stepmothr loved being able to do it. Miracles do happen. P.S. my stepmom had never been pregnant so she had never produced milk before. neat

Amberlee

Friends here in Norway suggested an breastfeeding tea to me early on in breastfeeding my baby. It has fennel in it so perhaps there is something in it that helps, but I don't think herbs alone would make you produce milk. 'Off Kilter', with her first hand experience verfies everything I've heard about a woman able to produce milk but not through pregnancy. I think her experience is about one of the best mother stories I've ever heard. I couldn't imagine NOT breastfeeding my little one and am lucky enough to be producing heaps of milk (almost too much...ouch...).

Im not sure how efficent herbs would be, but yes it is true that non pregnant woman can breastfeed. There is a medication called metoclopramide that can cause lactation. Doctors perscribe it to adoptive mothers who wish to breast feed or mothers that have quite breastfeeding and wish to relactate. This combined with a healthy diet, lots of water and contining stimlation of nipples will help produce milk even if the woman has never had a child. THere are herbs that help with lactation, such as fenuseed, fenugreek, blessed thisle, etc. But none of them would be strong enough to cause lactation in someone that hasnt had a child.

michelle