The mother load of lactation.
Providing milk to support their growing young is a tremendous energetic drain on mammalian females. They meet this challenge by recruiting multiple hormone-dependent mechanisms both in peripheral tissue and in the brain that conserve nutrients for milk production and facilitate increases in food intake. In addition, the negative energy balance associated with milk delivery itself results in changes in central pathways controlling metabolism that drive increases in food intake.
Barbara
B
Woodside
D000818:Animals; D004435:Eating / Q000502:physiology; D004734:Energy Metabolism / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007774:Lactation / Q000502:physiology*; D009035:Mothers