Dr Tom Smith 

Man milk

Dr Tom Smith answers your questions.
  
  

Baby milk bottle
Photograph: Dan Chung Photograph: Dan Chung/Guardian

Could men have injections to make their breasts give milk?

No problem. First you give injections of oestrogen and progesterone to produce a female-type breast. Then you would give the hormone prolactin to switch on the milk. It would almost certainly work. Surprised it hasn't yet been done? There's one snag. The injections would have powerful anti-male hormone effects. This would mean a breast-feeding father would lose his potency and his urge for sex. It would be effective contraception, and the marriage might go through a difficult patch. But does that matter, as long as Dad does his fair share of feeding?

How can I stop my kids getting car sick?

Get them to pretend they are driving the car, then they will concentrate on the road ahead. We have two mechanisms for knowing where we are relative to the space around us: our eyes and our balance organs. In a vehicle, if we are reading or looking at something inside it, our balance organs are still reacting to the world outside - the bends in the road, for example. The brain gets confused - are we jiggling about in a car, or flowing along the road? That leads to nausea and dizziness. Looking at the road ahead coordinates the eyes with the balance organs and you return to normal. Looking at the horizon from onboard a ship does the same thing. Playing games such as identifying cars or landmarks helps them to keep looking outwards. Books and video games are perfect for making kids sick in a car.

 

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