Functions
Further information: Uterine contractionThe myometrium stretches (the smooth muscle cells expand in both size and number) during pregnancy to allow for the harboring of the pregnancy, and contracts in a coordinated fashion, via a positive feedback effect on the "Ferguson reflex"), during the process of labor. After delivery the myometrium contracts to expel the placenta and reduce blood loss. Thus a positive benefit to early breast feeding is a natural stimulation of this reflex to reduce blood loss and facilitate a swift return to prepregnancy uterine and abdominal muscle tone.
Read more about this topic: Myometrium
Famous quotes containing the word functions:
“Nobody is so constituted as to be able to live everywhere and anywhere; and he who has great duties to perform, which lay claim to all his strength, has, in this respect, a very limited choice. The influence of climate upon the bodily functions ... extends so far, that a blunder in the choice of locality and climate is able not only to alienate a man from his actual duty, but also to withhold it from him altogether, so that he never even comes face to face with it.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Mark the babe
Not long accustomed to this breathing world;
One that hath barely learned to shape a smile,
Though yet irrational of soul, to grasp
With tiny finger—to let fall a tear;
And, as the heavy cloud of sleep dissolves,
To stretch his limbs, bemocking, as might seem,
The outward functions of intelligent man.”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
“Those things which now most engage the attention of men, as politics and the daily routine, are, it is true, vital functions of human society, but should be unconsciously performed, like the corresponding functions of the physical body.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)