08/12/2026
A little Anatomy & Physiology frustration from your Milk Mentor, Lawren 🥲
I’ve spent months taking a rigorous collegiate A&P course in preparation for a career in healthcare, only to reach the reproductive system module and discover that lactation gets ONE paragraph.
One. Single. Paragraph.
And somehow, the textbook’s diagram of the lactating breast is based on an anatomical model it acknowledges is outdated. 🫠
Modern ultrasound research has challenged the traditional description of “lactiferous sinuses,” finding that the large, sac-like reservoirs said to store volumes of milk that’s depicted in many traditional anatomical diagrams, were not observed in lactating women. Over 200 years after the original proposal of lactiferous sinuses.
Instead, researchers observed relatively small, highly branched ducts that appear to primarily transport milk rather than function as large storage reservoirs. And yet… this is still what so many healthcare students are being taught.
This isn’t about blaming professors. It’s about recognizing a much bigger problem: We cannot improve healthcare for lactating people if we don’t adequately study or teach lactation.
Lactating bodies deserve better research and future healthcare professionals deserve better education. 🤍
If we’re going to teach people how to care for breastfeeding families, we need to actually teach them about lactation.
📚 Sources:
Ramsay DT, Kent JC, Hartmann RA, Hartmann PE. Anatomy of the lactating human breast redefined with ultrasound imaging. Journal of Anatomy. 2005;206(6):525–534. doi:10.1111/j.1469-7580.2005.00417.x
Gooding MJ, Finlay J, Shipley JA, Halliwell M, Duck FA. Three-dimensional ultrasound imaging of mammary ducts in lactating women: a feasibility study. Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine. 2010;29(1):95–103. doi:10.7863/jum.2010.29.1.95
