I have slides of some electron micrographs of mouse alevoli which show the
relaxed myoepithelial cells arched across the alvolar cells.  Also shown are
milk fat globules still attached in many places to the surface of the
epithelial cells.

 The lumen of the alveoli is shown in the next slide after the myoepithelial
cells have contracted.  The cells are squeezed tight and there are
depressions on the surface of the cells where the milk fat globules were.
 Remember that the glouble membrane is actually derived from the surface of
the alveolar cells - it is a piece of epithelial membrane which wraps around
the milk fat and packages it.  Probably the globule is just hanging on to the
outer surface of the cell just waiting to be bumped off or squeezed off. Once
separated I don't think it would or could rejoin the epithelial cell or
reattach.  The globule would become suspended in the milk that has been
produced and not yet removed from the ducts.

 I hadn't read Hartmann's earlier work but I don't find a contradiction in
the work between Woolridge and Hartmann since someone explained on a previous
post that Hartmann said that if the baby were to suckle at one breast and get
less fatty milk, if the baby returned to *the same side* later s/he would
then get the fattier milk that remained.  I believe Woolridge probably did
his research on mothers who had waited a significant interval before feeding
on the tested side and therefore Woolridge and his colleagues found a
progression toward fattier milk as the baby nursed [since it wouldn't have
been a breast that was just nursed from and already had some of the foremilk
already removed.]

{Maureen Kennedy - I believe the Woolridge article is listed in the
bibliography of Hartmann's second article in the June? 1995 JHL.  I have
heard his lecture describing how they sampled the milk uisng a nipple shield
and tubing to extract samples.}
On another topic I must confess that I took up Pat Bull's challenge and tried
to express something from one of my breasts this morning.  I had thought my
breasts to be 'dried up' in the interval of 6+ years since my son had last
nursed.  I have squeezed the nipple  the the years since he weaned and
nothing had come out.  But today using manual expression I got a drop of
thick, yellow fluid!  I was astonished.  I hadn't expected manual expression
to make the difference but it did.  The fluid was not sweet; it was
tasteless.   I know I don't win the 'contest' but I imagine now that I've
tried it that the same thing would happen five or ten years from now.

Mardrey Swenson in NH where over the weekend we've had some light sprinkling
of snow hiding on thegrass in the deep shadow of early morning