What is an Adult Nursing Relationship (ANR)?

Adult Nursing Relationship (ANR)

Updated: JUNE 29, 2022

on March 3, 2021

An adult nursing relationship (ANR) is a consensual connection between two or more people wherein one person breastfeeds the others. While an ANR is not exclusive to specific genders, sexualities, or relationship models, the most common types of ANR involve heterosexual women feeding heterosexual men. However, people across the sexuality and gender spectrums, and couples, and more can be involved in adult nursing relationships.

In some instances, the people involved may be romantically and/or sexually involved or simply enjoy the act of nursing. At the same time, some adult nursing relationships may involve a sexual element while others do not. For some, the close and nurturing act of suckling—for both people—is the fulfilling part of the union. Whether sexual or not, the main appeals of an ANR are the intimacy created in breastfeeding and receiving milk, the sensual close contact through suckling and skin-to-skin contact, and the emotional bond in the relationship.

Breast milk contains the hormone oxytocin and its release helps with bonding, is very relaxing, and can reduce anxiety. Lactation also produces prolactin, which lowers stress in the person producing it.

When there is a sexual element, breast fetish, increased nipple sensation, increased breast size, roleplay, and lactation play are significant factors. Many people can squirt breast milk in significant quantities and a great distance, into the air or onto their partners.

Adult nursing relationships are often considered taboo because they are misunderstood. Breastfeeding has come to be understood as a relationship between a mother and child, and only when that child is very young. This leads to the misconception that an ANR has incest and pedophilic connotations. However, most participants in adult nursing relationships do not engage in age or incest play at all. In some instances, an adult nursing relationship may be tied into pregnancy fetish, however, lactation can also be induced and maintained by non-mothers people as well.

More About Adult Nursing Relationship (ANR)

Adult nursing relationships exemplify the conflicted feelings our society has about breasts. Depending on the dynamics of the relationship, the breasts of the feeder partner can be seen as comforting or they can be considered sexual (or both). This duality exists across society as a whole. Breasts are the giver of life-sustaining nutrients and the seat of a tremendously intimate bond. Breasts have also been sexualized to such a degree that their intended purpose—feeding—has been shunned by some.

This duality can allow adult nursing relationships to form naturally between an established couple. On other occasions people seek out people they can form adult nursing relationships with. Online communities help connect people who want to breastfeed with lactating women who want to breastfeed adults.

While adult nursing relationships usually involve lactation, this isn’t always the case. Sometimes adults may nurse without drinking milk, especially if the woman has stopped nursing or never had a child. “Dry nursing,” manual stimulation, pumping, and herbal remedies can start lactation.

Engaging in an adult nursing relationship is mostly safe. Breast milk is full of vitamins and nutrients and safe for adults to drink. There are, however, no studies that prove breastfeeding provides any benefit to adults.

There are a few health issues to be aware of. People can get sensitive nipples, a breast infection called mastitis, a yeast infection, viral infections, and sometimes bloodborne infections can spread through breastfeeding. Most women should also produce enough milk to nurse their child and an adult partner.

An adult nursing relationship can also be incorporated into BDSM. The lactating partner can become a hucow—a submissive who participates in forced lactation. The Dominant will then milk them in much the same manner as a cow. On the flip side, the lactating partner could be the Dominant who forces their submissive to feed on their breasts.