Is it safe to extract milk from neonates nipples?

Q: When my baby girl was born, the woman who used to massage my baby used to express milk from her nipples saying that it is to avoid them from becoming big. Will this affect my daughter in her hormones?

A:Sometimes a neonates breasts get swollen up in the days after birth under the influence of mothers hormones which get transmitted across the placenta. In some babies a small amount of milk might also be obtained on expression. This may happen in both male and female babies. This is a harmless condition that regresses spontaneously in a few days. It does not require any manual expression of milk or massage. In any case if it has been done, it is not going to harm your baby in any way.