医学对乳腺功能的专业化长期缺位，尽管每年有超过1.3亿女性分娩，而近20亿尚未生育的女性中有超过90%终会成为母亲；大量母亲尝试母乳喂养，但其中五分之二会遇到问题，说明对更好诊断和治疗的需求极大。

这类忽视在科研上同样明显：PubMed中关于“低乳量”或“低乳汁分泌”的论文约1.4万篇，而“勃起功能障碍”相关研究约3.2万篇，尽管后者影响的人群可能约3亿男性。2016年《柳叶刀》研究估计，若所有婴儿都接受母乳喂养，每年可避免82.3万名五岁以下儿童死亡。

真正的问题并非都能靠意志解决；一些母亲只是排乳困难，另一些则确实产奶不足。过去医生认为不足供奶仅影响不超过5%的母亲，但新研究把真实比例提高到约10%甚至20%，而原因常与遗传、肥胖、糖尿病或自身免疫性疾病等复杂生物通路有关。

Medicine still lacks a dedicated lactology, even though more than 130 million women give birth each year and over 90% of the nearly 2 billion women and girls who have not yet given birth are likely to do so eventually. Among mothers who try to breastfeed, two in five face at least some problems.

Research remains sparse: PubMed returns only about 14,000 papers on “low milk supply” or “low milk production,” compared with 32,000 studies on “erectile dysfunction,” a condition affecting perhaps 300 million men. A 2016 Lancet study found that universal breastfeeding could avert 823,000 deaths of children under five each year.

The old estimate that no more than 5% of mothers have inadequate milk supply is now being challenged by newer work suggesting closer to 10% or even 20%. Causes often involve factors beyond control, including genetics, obesity, diabetes, and autoimmune disorders, yet many women are still told to rely on an unproven regime of pumping at least eight times a day.

Source: Mothers who cannot breastfeed have been given terrible advice

Subtitle: Medicine has neglected mammary glands for too long

Dateline: 5月 14, 2026 11:24 上午