Mamma is the formal English medical word for breast. Mamma is a reduplication of the much older Proto-Indo-European root *ma, breast or mother. This is not only the first sound uttered by many human infants, it may also be the most widespread word root in the world. *Ma forms the basis of the word for mother in many different and possibly unrelated language families around the world:
Why so widespread a word? The sounds of m and a are among the easiest to make and among the first sounds acquired by a human infant. The first noise in life associated with deep pleasure may be the sound made by the infant’s mouth sucking milk from the mother’s breast. This sound is frequently some variant of ma-ma. The slight smacking movement of the lips made in uttering an m-sound is similar to the lip movement required to suck a nipple. But that is merely what the word mother means. There is no one way to express all an individual mother signifies. The sum of our sentiment is not contained in or exhausted by a mother’s day card. A certain Irishman lay on his deathbed and was asked by an attendant what he thought of life. Said the dying man, “I should have kissed her more.” So too with mothers.
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English mother and Latin mater and many similar maternal words contain the worldwide etymon ma ‘breast’ + ter an Indo-European agent suffix, so that the etymological meaning of the word mother is ‘breast-feeder.’ For other words ending in the Indo-European -ter suffix, look at: brother, sister, daughter, pater, frater, German Schwester ‘sister.’ The dental t sound often alters slightly to become a dental d sound, as in the German word for brother, Bruder. 
