The breast is the upper ventral region of the torso of a primate, in left and right sides, which in a female contains the mammary gland that secretes milk used to feed infants.
Both men and women develop breasts from the same embryological tissues. However, at puberty, female sex hormones, mainly estrogen, promote breast development, which does not occur in men, due to the higher amount of testosterone. As a result, women's breasts become far more prominent than those of men.
During pregnancy, the breast is responsive to a complex interplay of hormones that cause tissue development and enlargement in order to produce milk. Three such hormones are estrogen, progesterone and prolactin, which cause glandular tissue in the breast and the uterus to change during the menstrual cycle.
Each breast contains 15–20 lobes. The subcutaneous adipose tissue covering the lobes gives the breast its size and shape. Each lobe is composed of many lobules, at the end of which are sacs where milk is produced in response to hormonal signals.
Read more about Breast: Etymology, Development
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Famous quotes containing the word breast:
“If in the world there be more woe
Than I have in my heart,
Whereso it is, it doth come fro,
And in my breast there doth it grow,”
—Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503?–1542)
“I tell you the dances we had were really enough,
your hands on my breast and all that sort of stuff.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Now the nightingale, the pretty nightingale,
The sweetest singer in all the forest’s choir,
Entreats thee, sweet Peggy, to hear thy true Love’s tale:
Lo! yonder she sitteth, her breast against a briar.”
—Thomas Dekker (1572?–1632?)