Dr (Mrs) Onayiga Olaitan, Medical Director, Lagos-based Queen of Mercy Medical Centre, talks about this and a lot more with Josephine Agbonkhese of the Vanguard.
On how breastfeeding make the breasts sag
There is a way a woman should breastfeed her baby. If you go through the normal position for breastfeeding, there is the likelihood that the breasts might not sag. However, in majority of women, breastfeeding makes the breast sag. This is because during the process of lactation, the breasts would have enlarged with a lot of milk collection in it. Eventually, after about a year when you have weaned your baby and the breast has to go back to its original size, there is the tendency that it is going to sag because of the space the milk had occupied before. But for some women, the sagging is more likely to happen if they don’t sit properly during breastfeeding; in a way that the child does not have to stretch the breast to feed.
On if bras can help breasts go back to shape after breastfeeding
There is a possibility but it is not to the normal size. What happens in a sagged breast is that the tissues are already loose, so, wearing some bras like the ‘packing’ bras, could actually help to reduce the looseness. As such, we can also reduce the sagging but not bring the breast back to normal totally.
It is advised that while a woman is breastfeeding, she should not leave her breast without bras because during these period, the breast is loose. So, it is better you wear bras so that they help to keep the tissues in the breasts firm. But most women believe wearing a bra while still breastfeeding would weaken milk flow… That is not true.
The mechanism of breastfeeding and breast milk production has nothing to do with bras. When the child puts the mouth to suckle, there are some messages that are sent to some parts of the brain and automatically, you have the release of hormones and the milk automatically comes out. So, the only thing that can impede breast milk’s flow is if the child is not sucking properly. But once the child is sucking properly, whether you wear tight bras or not does not matter; that will even help prevent the breast from getting unnecessarily engorged.
SOURCE: Vanguard
