One of the most common things you hear from women who are pregnant or planning to become pregnant is that they intend to bottle-feed their baby because they don’t want to have sagging breasts after breastfeeding. Even women who support breastfeeding1 seem to accept that the choice to feed their children with the best food that nature can provide will sacrifice the firmness of breast tissue, and sagging breasts after breastfeeding will simply be a consequence. In reality, it is totally possible and even normal to care for several children and have little or no change in breast appearance after weaning.
Why Do Breasts Sag After Breastfeeding?
Sagging breasts after breastfeeding may primarily be the result of an irregular diet among most breastfeeding mothers, as well as preparing the breasts incorrectly for breastfeeding. Good genetics also help in these situations.
Prevent Sagging Breasts After Breastfeeding by Eating Well
The most important thing a woman can do before breastfeeding is to properly prepare her breasts for the stress and tension of this stage with a diet that results in very strong and elastic skin. A diet low in saturated fat that avoids butter and other animal fats, including vegetable oils and other foods high in protein2, will not result in skin that is more elastic and helps prevent sagging breasts after breastfeeding. The reason for this is that every cell in the skin and body has a cell membrane that ideally should be made up of at least 50% saturated fat. When skin cell membranes are made primarily of saturated fats, as they should be, they are strong, resilient, and highly elastic, which will certainly make a big difference when your breasts double in size during breastfeeding.
Healthy Fats Are Essential for Healthy Skin
If a woman avoids saturated fats in her diet and consumes polyunsaturated vegetable fats and oils, like soybean oil, which is heavily used in almost all processed foods, the skin cell membranes will incorporate some of these fats.
Stretch Marks
Saturated fat in the diet is also essential to prevent stretch marks on the breasts when the milk comes in shortly after the baby is born. Skin cells with highly saturated cell membranes will be elastic and will not be easily damaged by this sudden tension3. Another critical fat that healthy skin needs is arachidonic acid. This fat is found mainly in egg yolks and butter, which many women preparing for pregnancy and breastfeeding mistakenly avoid. Traditional women in Chinese provinces know this. They are encouraged to eat up to 10 eggs a day along with plenty of chicken and pork during breastfeeding. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why it is very difficult to see a traditional Chinese breastfeeding woman with sagging breasts. Arachidonic acid (AA) is a highly underrated fat for maintaining healthy skin. Arachidonic acid is critical for the proper formation of the junctions between skin cells. Without enough arachidonic acid in the diet, the skin cannot retain moisture properly and is more susceptible to damage as the water between cells evaporates, resulting in a lack of cell-to-cell cohesion that makes the skin stronger.
Does Weaning Influence This Change?
Very often yes, in addition to diet, the approach a woman uses to wean her baby significantly affects the outcome and may lead to sagging breasts after breastfeeding. Weaning around 4 to 6 months greatly contributes to sagging breasts after breastfeeding. This is when the baby’s demands for milk are at their peak. Stopping breastfeeding abruptly at this point is not a good idea, as it can cause excessively loose breasts. To get an idea of what happens, think of an obese person who undergoes bariatric surgery and loses weight quickly. This usually results in excess skin that must be removed by surgery years later. The best way to wean is gradually, ideally starting around 2 years, when the demand for breastfeeding decreases as the child becomes more interested in solid foods. At this stage, the body has time to gradually shrink and reabsorb the breast tissue and skin that stretched and expanded greatly to accommodate large amounts of breast milk.
I Did Everything Right, But My Breasts Sagged After Weaning!
There’s no denying that some women, even when following the rules, end up with sagging breasts after breastfeeding. As mentioned above, genetics play a big part in this case, just as with someone who eats everything and doesn’t gain weight, or someone who doesn’t get stretch marks during pregnancy. Some targeted exercises can improve the appearance of sagging breasts after breastfeeding, but if you are still unhappy with the result, the next step would be a corrective surgery.
What Surgery is Ideal for Sagging Breasts After Breastfeeding?
Many women are mistaken about which surgery they should get to lift sagging breasts after breastfeeding. Many make the mistake of getting breast implants to solve the problem. When breasts are sagging, mastopexy is the most indicated plastic surgery, as it is necessary to reposition the breasts. This plastic surgery aims to lift the breasts to a higher position on the chest. Prosthesis implants can be done along with the repositioning of the breasts if that is what the patient desires.
Removal of Excess Skin
It is important to know that inserting breast implants without removing excess skin can leave breasts even more saggy and, in that way, the final aesthetic result will be compromised and unsatisfactory. Even the areolas may end up in a poor position. See Also: There Is Life After Pregnancy!
