Breastfeeding Doesn't Cause Saggy Boobs!

There are many myths surrounding breastfeeding and to be honest they’re all pretty unhelpful…
One of the ones you hear most often though, is that breastfeeding your baby will make your boobs saggy.

In one online survey, half of the young women (aged 18-25) polled said they had no intention of breastfeeding, and 32% stated that their reason for making such a decision was that they didn’t want to develop saggy breasts. 

Regardless of the rights and wrongs of such a decision, anyone aiming to encourage women to breastfeed needs to take such figures seriously.

In 2009 there were nearly 700,000 births in England and Wales.  If the above poll is in any way representative, that means something in the region of 350,000 mothers (around half) may have chosen not to breastfeed. 

A belief that breastfeeding would adversely affect their figures may therefore have prevented over 200,000 mothers from breastfeeding their babies in England and Wales alone*.  *(Until further research is undertaken these figures are purely speculation on my part, however they are based on a large survey of over 1,000 women).

Setting aside for a moment the range of other issues which influence a woman’s decision concerning how she feeds her baby, these statistics are horrifying because they show a huge degree of ignorance when it comes to the facts. 

Thousands of women choose never to start breastfeeding because of a myth – they may as well believe the earth is flat.

IT'S SIMPLY NOT TRUE.

Last year thousands and thousands of babies were denied the protection of breast milk and breastfeeding.  Not because their mothers weren’t adequately supported (which is so often the case), but actually because their mothers believed a myth.

One man's FACT is, of course, another woman's 'not proven'.  Some people maintain that greenhouse gases aren't a cause of global warming, or that cigarettes don't cause cancer (my granny smoked until she was 90 etc) - however, for the purposes of this blog, the FACT is that the only research* done into this subject found no connection between breastfeeding and breast sagging.

So who told these women breastfeeding would make their breast sag? Their mothers? Partners? Friends? Doctors?

It’s incredible in the C21st, but this myth is so virulent that despite scientific evidence to the contrary, people still believe it.

So here’s the truth.

Breastfeeding doesn’t make your boobs sag.

Here are some facts on breast sagging (breast-ptosis) and why it happens:

• The majority of women undergo some breast changes during pregnancy.  These changes include breast enlargement, increased blood flow, the development of small lumps ('Montgomery’s tubercles') on the areola.  These changes happen so as to prepare the breasts for breastfeeding a baby after birth.
  
  
• Many women put on weight during pregnancy and additional fat stores are laid down in the breasts.  This adds to their increase in size.  Both of these changes will result in a stretching of the skin, and stretch marks may appear.
  
  
• In the days and hours following birth, the breasts begin to make milk.  This will happen whether you intend to breastfeed or not.  A few days after birth the milk (usually) ‘comes in’ and many women experience some engorgement.  Their breasts become full and the skin may feel tight and stretched, (breastfeeding is a great treatment for this).  ;)
  
  
• If you don’t breastfeed, the breasts gradually stop producing milk and the engorgement subsides on it’s own as the body realises no milk is required.  The milk-making machinery then shrinks back in a process called ‘breast involution’.  The skin (which has been stretched as explained above) may or may not ‘snap back’ into shape. 
  
  
• The additional weight gain/ breast enlargement caused by pregnancy may have also stretched the ligaments supporting the breast.
  
  
• If a woman smokes, this can affect the ability of her skin to recover from changes (such as those brought on by pregnancy). This is because smoking reduces the levels of collagen and elastin in the body.
  
  
• If a woman continues to breastfeed her breast involution will be delayed and will take place when the child weans. 
  
  
• Age matters – the older we get, the less collagen and elastin we naturally have in our skin (hence wrinkles!), and so with age everyone sags a bit.  It’s a fact of life.
• 
  
  The number of pregnancies you’ve had can also contribute to breast sagging. The associated weight gain/ weight loss and breast enlargement/ breast involution is to blame. Basically, the more pregnancies you have the more you’re putting your body through & the harder it will find it to recover.
  
  
• The bigger your breasts are anyway, the more likely they are to head south at some point.  This is because of gravity and the weight of the breast pulling on the supporting ligaments.
  
  
• There is evidence to show that wearing a bra actually weakens the ligaments supporting the breast (as they are not being used) and therefore contributes to breast ptosis. 
  
  
•  If you lose a lot of weight, your skin may struggle to shrink back once the fat has gone – this can leave your breasts looking ‘empty’. Again, the supporting ligaments may have been stretched in the past.
  
  
• Breastfeeding has not been found to be a cause of breast-ptosis.

Breastfeeding helps the body to recover from the changes of pregnancy because it helps the uterus to return to it’s pre-pregnancy size.  It also uses up additional calories and therefore assists in post-pregnancy weight loss.

Take a look around you.  Can you honestly say you can tell from looking which of the mothers you see out and about have breast-fed?  Can you tell if their impressive cleavage is down to a good bra, a set of chicken fillets, good genes, a good surgeon or a breast full of milk?

Didn’t think so.

For those interested in the studies into breast ptosis:
*http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19083576
*http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1651-2227.2004.tb02935.x/abstract