off kilter

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