Women can avoid saggy breasts from breastfeeding in most instances when dietary preparation and proper weaning precautions are taken to prepare the skin for maximum elasticity and repair.
One of the saddest things I sometimes hear from women who are pregnant or plan to become pregnant is that they intend to bottlefeed their baby because they’ve been warned, usually from their Mothers, that breastfeeding causes droopy, saggy breasts.
Even women who are in full support of breastfeeding seem to accept that the choice to feed their child naturally with the best Nature can provide will ultimately sacrifice the firmness of their breast tissue and that saggy breasts post nursing are just part of the package.
While every woman is different and certainly in some instances, pregnancy and breastfeeding can cause undesirable changes to the appearance of the bosom despite mom’s best efforts, there are definite strategies that women can implement prior to and during nursing that can greatly lessen the impact.
In fact, it is totally possible and even normal to nurse several children and have little to no change in the appearance of the bosom once weaning of the last child takes place.
Could Saggy Breasts Syndrome perhaps primarily be the result of the appalling diet of most nursing mothers and the modern, abrupt approach to weaning rather than the act of breastfeeding itself?
Avoid Saggy Breasts by Preparing Breast Tissue with Diet
The most important thing a woman can do prior to nursing is to adequately prepare the breasts for the stress and strain of nursing with a diet that results in very strong, elastic skin.
Of critical note is that a lowfat diet that eschews butter, cream, and other animal fats while including vegetable oils from factory produced, low cholesterol spreads, dressings, and other processed foods is not going to result in the elastic breast skin that avoids Saggy Breast Syndrome.
The reason is that every single cell in your skin and body has a cell membrane that should ideally be composed of at least 50% saturated fat. When the cell membranes of the skin are composed of mostly saturated fat like they should be, they are strong, resilient, and highly elastic with much cell membrane integrity.
Healthy Fats are Key to Healthy Skin
If you avoid saturated fats in the diet and misguidedly starve your skin of the saturated fat it needs, and instead consume factory-produced vegetable fats like soy and canola oil that are used heavily in nearly all processed foods, the cell membranes of your skin will incorporate some of these processed fats resulting in skin cells that are more easily damaged and not of the proper shape for the stretching and straining of nursing.
Plenty of saturated fats in the diet is also key to avoiding stretch marks on the breasts when the milk rapidly comes pouring in shortly after baby is born. Skin cells with highly saturated cell membranes will be elastic and not easily damaged by this sudden strain!
Elusive Nutrients
Plenty of vitamin K2 in the diet is important as well, largely found in animal fats. This largely ignored nutrient has been shown in Japanese women who eat lots of the Vitamin K2 superfood natto to confer superior skin elasticity and resistance to sagging and wrinkling. Over 90% of people are estimated to be seriously deficient in this nutrient! Grassfed butter, emu oil, goose liver pate, and pastured eggs are other excellent sources of this nutrient.
Another critical fat that healthy skin needs is arachidonic acid. This fat is primarily found in egg yolks and butter, which so many women preparing for pregnancy and nursing mistakenly avoid! Women in traditional Chinese provinces like Chongqing know better, however, as they are encouraged to eat up to 10 eggs per day along with plenty of chicken and pork while nursing! Perhaps this is one reason why it is rare to see a traditional Chinese woman with children who has breasts down around her belly button.
Arachidonic acid (AA) is an underappreciated 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, skin cannot adequately maintain moisture and is more susceptible to damage as the water between cells evaporates from missing cell-to-cell junctions. (1)
Ideal Weaning Age to Minimize Saggy Breasts
In addition to diet, the approach a woman employs to wean her child significantly impacts the perkiness versus sagginess of her bosoms at the conclusion of breastfeeding.
The modern approach to weaning is to parent initiate the process and do so fairly suddenly once the child starts eating solid foods or Mom goes back to work.
Weaning around the 4-6 month mark contributes greatly to saggy breasts. This is the very time when baby’s demands for breastmilk are the greatest. Stopping nursing abruptly at this point is not a good idea! It can cause excessively saggy breasts in the same way as an obese person who undergoes gastric bypass surgery and loses weight rapidly. This usually results in pounds and pounds of excess skin that need to be removed by surgery years later.
Wean Gradually When Baby is Already on Solid Foods
The better way to wean is as gradually as possible, ideally somewhere between the 2-4 year mark. When weaning is very gradual with the demand for nursing by the child easing off slowly as his/her appetite for solid foods increases, the body has time to slowly shrink and reabsorb the breast tissue and skin that stretched and greatly expanded to accommodate large quantities of breastmilk when the child was an infant.
Think of the difference between someone who loses weight at a rapid pace which is what happens after gastric bypass surgery versus someone who loses weight more gradually with improvements in diet and exercise alone. In the first scenario, much excess, sagging skin that needs to be removed by surgery is the typical result; in the second scenario, excess skin problems are much less of an issue if at all.
Nursing a child until 2-4 years old mimics the practice of Traditional Societies. These cultures carefully spaced the birth of children to ensure the optimal health of each child as well as the provision of nutrient-dense breastmilk with all the helpful immune-boosting factors until the child was well beyond babyhood.
Careful attention and thought to the diet followed well before pregnancy and during nursing as well as a slow instead of fast approach to weaning can go a long way toward ensuring that your breasts provide not only optimal nutrition for your baby but also maintain their shape afterward!
Guggie L Daly via Facebook
Regulating hormones might be helpful, too. Hormone changes during pregnancy are what allegedly cause the damage. Definitely already done to me long before I began breastfeeding. But I know I have skin issues anyways.
Shannon Winston via Facebook
I weaned at the 6-8 month mark-so “my bad” on that one. I wonder if this can be corrected by “doing it right” in subsequent pregnancies? Any thoughts?
Susan Adams Oliff via Facebook
Mine aren’t saggy or deflated, granted I started out with perkier than average ones since I had had a reduction nearly 20 years prior. I don’t remember exactly what all I ate but I ate whatever I could, minus the long list of stuff that made my son thrash, buck, and spit up volumes. Weaning was baby lead, and happened at 20 months.
Anastasia Akasha Kaur via Facebook
I eat/ate saturated fats from organic sources and weaned and will wean at 2 and I still have breasts that droop …… as much as I’d like to believe that these things will prevent it, I’m afraid it has not for me. But, just as grey hair and wrinkles are a part of life, so are droopy boobs, big deal.
Monica
I’m the same way. I eat right but I don’t have the breast shape I did before and I have the worst stretch marks I’ve ever seen. I have nothing against this article and eating properly, but from my experience, it’s not a black and white issue. Bad skin seems to run in my family. I had a friend pregnant at the same time as me; she ate all the wrong things and has skin like a rubberband and no stretch marks. Some of us are just blessed with learning to accept the changes in our bodies 🙂
April B
Yes!! Me too. Great diet, lots of fat, rub coconut oil on my breasts, droopy as all get out.
And what about those pictures of traditional African women who have verrrry droopy breasts???
Oliver
Hype is hype – There is no diet or breastfeeding technique including when the infant is weened that will prevent nature from doing what it do. Every body and breast is different and will respond differently. Breasts that are prone to drooping will droop no matter what – So too with vaginal stretching during birth and not returning to “form” after birth.
Motherhood is wrought with wonderful sacrifice. If your husband can’t appreciate all that you are and all that you do – then that is a topic for another thread (even if it is not about pleasing him).
Always and forever, your kids will appreciate your sacrifices – my mom is my hero – and being a twin I had to share the pair darn it 🙁
kidz
Not all kids will appreciate those sacrifice , I wish I never have to go through any of these thing
thehealthyhomeeconomist via Facebook
We can all help our daughters can’t we :))
Rebecca De Anda Boucher via Facebook
Take that Jillian Michaels! although the 2-4 years seems kind of long.
Amanda
The World Health Organization says that across the globe, the average weaning age is between 2 to 7 years. Breastfeeding for 2 years or more is fine and totally normal. In fact, breast milk changes to adapt to your child’s needs, no matter their age. It truly is amazing!
Lacie
2-4 years isn’t long at all…it goes by very fast:(
Odalys
2-7 yrs? LoL! I couldnt see my son coming home from 1st grade and his snack is sucking on my breast. No sweetie…no!
His friends would come over and are told to wait a couple of minutes before they can all go outside and play b/c he’s busy suckling. No way! Not normal.
Belle
Breastfeeding is normal that is why we have breasts hello??? But also their are baby bottles to feed your child if they are getting to old for the boob.
Amy Gault via Facebook
I wish I had known about all of this 5 babies ago. Thankfully, with my 1 year old, we’ve had a diet full of saturated fat, and all the others have weaned around 18 months, very gradually.
Shannon Winston via Facebook
someone should have told me this 5 years ago!! 🙁
Angelina
Agree – and is there a way to reverse the sag?! 🙂
Kathy
Stand on your head!
Angelina
Agree – and is there a way to reverse the sag?! 🙂
Elizabeth
With my first my breasts got smaller but I weaned her abruptly. With the second and third my bikes got and stayed bigger so far… I nursed then monger though and used a lot of Shea butter so maybe it can be reversed
Lynsey Atkinson Kramer via Facebook
this is very encouraging to me! i was under the impression that the longer you nurse, the more saggy your breasts become. i’ve nursed all four of mine past the year mark. my baby is girl is 19 months and still nursing strong. thanks for the info!
Tracey
My son weaned at 5 and my daughter at age 4 so between them I was consecutively nursing for 8 1/2 years. I started eating traditionally about when my son was 3 and at 42 I still do not have sagging breasts but I do think an adequate yoga practice has helped alot. Push ups and other exercises for my pectoral muscles I believe has helped a great deal to keep thier old shape.
Tracey
I also wanted to add though that even if my breasts had sagged down to my navel i would do it all over again as nothing can compare not only witht he nutrition of breastmilk but with those precious bonding moments that I spent with my children during that time. Saggy breasts are a small price to pay in comparison.
tereza
I think sagging has to do with the size of breasts. As you may know, breasts are mostly fat, and if they are big, there is no way they are going to be standing up on their own. I nursed all 4 of my kids, still nursing my almost 3 y.o. and I wouldn’t say my breasts look perky at all. 🙂 But I really don’t care. They were made for nursing and not for other people’s appreciation.
However, I do think that if I had adopted a full fat diet I probably wouldn’t have the stretch marks I do. Marks of beauty they are. 🙂
kidz
Well hope your happy with your mark of beauty and long breast .
Hannah
Shut up
Sondra Motton via Facebook
Samantha Phillips Harris Something to know for when you start nursing 🙂