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Men already have the components necessary for lactation, but they are underdeveloped, and women can breastfeed a baby while being completely flat-second hand experience with my aunt-since the factor for breast size is the fatty tissue not the mammary glands. Therefore the men are not going to be that different.

I intend to make the women able to control what nutrients to give the baby from her own body, amd the milk from the father is directly goes to the baby.

When babies suck a nipple, their saliva send signals to the mother about their needs. Can i make the placenta send signals of what the baby needs, and when the woman suckle, the father's milk is adjusted accordingly? Like if the baby need iron and calcium, instead of taking it all from the mother, it also takes it from the milk by sending the signals, and the load is divided between the mother and father.

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  • $\begingroup$ Please edit the question to limit it to a specific problem with enough detail to identify an adequate answer. $\endgroup$
    – Community Bot
    May 27, 2022 at 19:07
  • $\begingroup$ Both female and male pigeons produce crop milk to feed their squabs. (And incidentally, that's why pigeons usually lay two eggs -- each adult pigeon produces crop milk for one squab.) $\endgroup$
    – AlexP
    May 27, 2022 at 19:18
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    $\begingroup$ why not just feed the baby directly, male humans can already lactate and feed babies. you also have a problem a baby wants all the nutrients more than the mother can spare, there is an evolutionary competition between baby and mother for nutrients. $\endgroup$
    – John
    May 27, 2022 at 20:03
  • $\begingroup$ @John yes because there's a competition between the mother and baby, I want the father to help when the mother is pregnant, instead of only her eating food and giving it to the baby, the father also help through eating food that converts to milk that would be tailored to the baby. Thus helping the mother-which I intend to give the ability to choose to give nutrients-just like other animals could-just like other animals could. $\endgroup$
    – Reek
    May 27, 2022 at 20:23
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    $\begingroup$ @Reek the mother still needs to eat the milk and digest it when should could just bee eating the food directly. milk is already tailored to a babies needs. what a baby needs is more or less identical, the mother already provides whatever she can. if a baby has a deficiency it is because the mother also has said deficiency. so far your system is no better than the existing one if anything it is worse since you have the risk of signal malfunction. $\endgroup$
    – John
    May 27, 2022 at 20:48

1 Answer 1

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This system would be extremely inefficient, and it's hard to see how it could be an evolutionary advantage.

The virtue of milk as a food is that it's easy to digest, especially for a baby's newly-started digestive system. But making it costs energy and extra nutrients, and human milk is not particularly nutrient-dense. So having a male eat, digest, make milk, feed it to the mother, who then needs to digest it before she can pass it on to the child she's carrying, does not make sense.

It's far more efficient for a male to gather and transport food to the mother. That saves the overheads of his digesting it and making milk. The mother has plenty of time available for eating and digesting during even the late stages of pregnancy. Her limit on supplying the child is the rate of transport across the placenta, and that's far lower than the rate at which she can eat.

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