Yes, you will need to be pregnant to start lactating. I don’t believe I have ever heard of a woman just staring to produce milk out of the blue.

Theoretically your body will continue producing milk for a while after you give birth. As long as you keep extracting the milk from your breasts they will keep trying to replenish the supply. There will be a point that you will not want to breastfeed the child, usually when they start to get teeth. They obviously won’t have much control over these new teeth and biting can be very painful. This was usually when my wife stopped breastfeeding both of our kids.

Humans aren’t really wired for continuous milk generation like some other animals are (cows, goats, etc.) After a while it can become very cumbersome especially with the child growing so fast. Once the child reaches a certain age they really don’t need the milk anymore either.

I'm assuming by the title of your post your husband is interested in breast feeding?

http://www.anrdating.com/

The above site is an ANR (adult nursing relationship) site that may offer some tips to get you started and advice on how to continue the relationship.

ETA: it's a dating site, but still may have some useful information for you and your husband.

@caroll actually i am discussing about how a women can have continous supply of milk for long time. actually i am male and i haven't yet married yet.

Okay, so you are looking for a lactating woman for yourself then?

I really don't get the question, either. The purpose of breast-feeding is to feed a baby--not a husband--and only temporarily. Please, when a child is able to stand on his/her feet while having a boob attached to his/her lips--this is just too old, and possibly borderline nutty.

No, it would not be healthy for a woman to lactate longer than necessary. Understand that breastfeeding does take essential nutrients from the mother's body, so it is quite depleting in more ways than one.

@swatz: I may be confused then on what you're asking and I didn't mean to offend with my reply. The use of the word "husband" in the title and references to nursing give conflicting messages.

But I did do some further research and it does appear that through long-term nipple stimulation and the psychological desire to lactate, a woman can begin lactating. The process is called induction lactation. As long as the stimulation continues the breasts will continue to produce milk.

This does answer part of your question: milk will continue to be produced as long as the woman nurses, either a baby (which eventually becomes old enough to not require nursing and at some point does need to stop for the mental health of the child and mother) or by an adult partner.

It's rather like a dairy cow: cows give birth, nurse the calf for a length of time and then are artificially stimulated twice daily by automated milking machines to continue producing milk for human consumption. When the cow is to be bred again, they are dried up, i.e., no more milking takes place and she is ready to be bred to produce another calf.

Also, a woman would probably not be able to maintain a life-long supply of milk. I do believe toward menopause there may be hormonal changes (and quite possibly other physical, mental or attitude changes) that may finally cause lactation to cease.

Again, if this is not what you're asking, I apologize. Please feel free to ask more questions if this line of answer isn't helping. I think there may be something I'm missing here.

Women also lactate due to hormonal imbalances or due to pituitary tumors (brain tumors around the pituitary gland) which cause the body to believe it is pregnant. That is a medical condition that requires professional attention. Brain tumors or hormonal imbalances can cause other physical damage and need to be addressed.

Long-term lactation does require some additional nutritional consideration by the woman. Women are basically engineered to nurse successive babies over long periods of time, but with proper nutrition. But lifestyles were different when women breastfed larger families. I'm not sure if nutrition was better then or if women did not have access to the array of poor quality food we have access to now ... I mean fast food and empty calorie junk food along with chemical preservatives. A good diet would go along way toward keeping any woman healthy, especially one who intends to practice long term lactation.