There are dynamic fluid shifts that can take up to two weeks to equilibrate, resulting in prolonged swelling for some time after delivery. Lochia , or normal post-partal bleeding, can last up to a month to six weeks. Therefore, breastfeeding, and therefrom, afterbirth pains, have an evolutionary survival function, helping to limit blood loss from the uterus after deliveries. Because we're mammals, we have retained several physical characteristics that are pinnacles of evolution.
None is as nurturing to our kind, however, as breast-feeding.
Besides the obvious nutritional superiority over formula, there are also the bonding, affection, and warmth of the maternal-newborn exchange that snuggling in this way affords. And from this act of love, life flows, literally. The lactating breast answers the infant's mouth, satisfying the void that the suckling fills. Indeed, the mother and breast-feeding child constitute a different mammal altogether, a unique unit of togetherness. First of all, few women get proper instruction in the art, either from their own mothers or from their doctors.