lactant

English

Etymology

From Latin lactans, present participle of lactare (“to suck”), from lac, lactis (“milk”).

Adjective

lactant (not comparable)

1. lactating; producing milk.
   • 1955, Mariano Dy-Liacco Obias, Maternal Behavior of Hypophysectomized Gravid Albino Rats and the Development and Performance of Their Progeny, page 23:

     Under the circumstances where the hypophysectomized mothers (and unexpectedly, two control mothers) could not lactate, a schedule for the re-shuffling of test young between lactant and non-lactant mothers was instituted ( this was arranged so that each test young was alternately under the care of a pair of lactant and non-lactant mothers) .

   • 1974, Paulo Roberto Silva, Estimating Least Cost Human Diets in the Northeast of Brazil with Stochastic Programming, page 123:

     […] to provide adequate diets to families which have either a pregnant or a lactant woman. It also shows that to provide an adequate diet to a family with a pregnant woman would cost Cr $8.34 / month ( Cr$60.34 ) less than to feed the same family with a lactant woman.

   • 1976, Acta Veterinaria Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, page 427:

     Of the total number of 44 females captured, 11 (25.0%) were sterile, not participating, for various reasons, in reproduction; 4 females (9.1%) were pregnant with embryos 20 to 28 mm in length, and 29 females (65.9%) were lactant, one to ten days following parturition.

   • 1982, R. K. Narula, Agricultural and Rural Advances by Commercial Banks, page 369:

     Suppose the farmer purchased 3 buffalloes on 1-6-1981 and it is assumed that they were lactant on 1-5-1981.

Noun

lactant (plural lactants)

1. A lactating mother; A mother who is suckling offspring.
   • 1950, The Tohoku Journal of Experimental Medicine, page 251:

     Even if a lactant has taken a poison, it will, as the hitherto literature shows, scarcely be excreted into her milk.

   • 2013, Navarro Blasco, I. Vill Elízaga, A. Martín Pérez, “Dietary Intake of Toxic Trace Elements in Infant Feeding”, in Jean Nève, ‎ Philippe Chappuis, ‎ Michel Lamand, editor, Therapeutic Uses of Trace Elements, page 59:

     Given the evident toxicological impact of certain elements on lactants, and considering that the absorption of these is significantly higher than in adults, it is desirable that infant formulae are proportionally similar or inferior in levels of concentration to those supplying human milk

   • 2021, Pim de Voogt, Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology Volume 258, page 97:

     A saponite-rich bentonite showed the highest adsorbent capacity to reduce AFM1 in contaminated bovine milk (up to 80 ng/L) to a safe level (50 ng/L for adults and 25 ng/L for lactants) with moderate alteration of the nutritional properties of milk (Carraro et al. 2014).

Latin

Verb

lactant

1. third-person plural present active indicative of lactō