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!
Seems like it’s mostly genetics. But perhaps the suggestions in this article can help a little in the positive direction. Maybe not the winning key, but still something. I think the age you give birth has lots to do with how well your body bounces back.
I had my third baby over 40 and my breasts still were fine because I nursed so long which provided time for slow reduction in breast tissue rather than an abrupt stop when the breasts were at their largest and fullest. I had zero sagging! Certainly diet is important too. If you aren’t eating good quality fats to reinforce those skin cells to make them strong and their junctures tight, then forget about it. Saggy breasts will be the result.
After breastfeeding my boobs started sagging. I started using Boobpop tool and I’ve seen a drastic chance. My breast are firmer and fuller.
I just wanted to share my story. Full disclosure I have not stopped breastdeeding – thats why I am reading this article.
I was a 36b or c pre pregnancy, and the moment I became pregnant my boobs grew to a 38c and when baby came to a 38d. I didn’t gain weight anywhere else but my belly and my boobs.
I thought I would stop bfing at 1 year as I had to go back to work but my baby didn’t want to stop. He had his bobbie in the morning before I left -the moment I came home, before bed and during the night. He is 2.5 now and still breastfeeding…. He is slowly weaning him self as he finally slept through the nigh for like a week now….
I never knew what to expect when it came to breastfeeding and somehow I had tons of milk, so I breastfeed my nefwey when he came over… At some points the milk would spray so much that my baby couldn’t handle it and didn’t want to open his mouth to eat. I had to pump everytime before breastfeeding, and then re teach my son to latch because he was so afraid to breastfeed and didn’t want to open his mouth.
Then the teeth came and I thought if he bits me I’m done. And he bit me, lots, I cried and said I’m done. My boobs were sooo full of milk…. One last try and he stoped bitting after 2 weeks of constant bitting….
Its hard, and not fun. But after 9 months i started enjoying it so much. There were no issues, it was our special bonding time. To tell you the truth I am a little sad we only bf once a day now.
So I am waiting to see what happends to my boobs now.
Saying that whether or not our boobs are going to sag depends on how long we nurse is like saying you can prevent stretch marks if you take care of your belly. it’s incorrect. I lathered my skin constantly, had a great diet, avoided caffeine and sugar, nursed for a year and still ended up with stretchmarks on my stomach and breasts. And yes even saggy boobs. It was non preventable. But i have a friend who didn’t nurse her first one and only nursed her second child for 6 months. She ate junk food, didn’t lather. and she doesn’t have a stretch mark on her and her boobs are still perky. I also know someone who nursed as long as I did and no stretch marks. It’s more genetics than anything. We all have different bodies. To say otherwise is a fallacy.
A year of nursing is really not long enough unfortunately as suggested in the post Of course, the method mentioned in this post won’t work for everyone, but it works for a lot of women who have emailed me their results! One woman who has a twin sister followed this approach and had very little sagging post nursing .. her twin sister nursed for about 6 months then stopped and her breasts sag a lot.
I would have to say the toddler issue is a personal experience… both of your perspectives are right and wrong. To say “for most women breastfeeding is rough” is not entirely accurate. Some women love breastfeeding. At the same time, the response of “Words spoken by a women who has obviously never breastfed a toddler with h a mouthful of teeth,” is a little much. Some women really do struggle with breastfeeding, and any time on the breast is better than none!
I loved and love breastfeeding my children. It is a wonderful bonding experience with my babies. However, my daughter weaned herself at around 15 months by biting. She was only nursing twice daily at this point, morning and night. She would bite and think it was funny. It happened enough I reasearched it and found it’s a common sign of being ready to wean. So I told her she wouldn’t be able to nurse anymore if she continued- she did It again, laughed, and was done nursing with no complaint. Never asked to nurse again.
My son is the same age now, 15 months, and still nursing multiple times a day with no end in sight. Every child and mother is different!
Speaking of, my breasts seemed to deflate overnight a month or so ago. No change in nursing with my son. I also just found out I am hypothyroid…could it be because of that?? I feel saggy otherwise too, like I aged 5+ years overnight 🙁 My diet is mostly good, lots of good saturated fat from coconut oil and meat. Lots of veggies, gluten and dairy free due to my son’s intolerances. I do eat some junk food, especially chips. I am so discouraged by my breasts…I’m hoping if it’s hormone related (thyroid/ estrogen dominant) I can regain firmness.
It sounds so lovely and I wish it was true but how your breasts end up is really still based on your genetics. I have an extraordinarily healthy diet (and I do incorporate plenty of healthy fats that you used as examples) and I breastfed all 3 of my children until age 2.5. However, my breasts are now unattractive and saggy enough (a saggy size 32B) that I am considering surgery which is something I am very surprised to hear myself say. But my breasts really are that bad now. I am fit and relatively young and I have good skin with no stretch marks but my breasts did not fare well with childbearing. Anyways, it is what it is and I have friends whose breasts look great after the same scenario. Everyone’s body reacts differently and kudos to you if your breasts look good still. The rest of my body shows no evidence of pregnancy/nursing but these boobs are another thing all together.
So refreshing to read your comments. I have been breastfeeding for nearly 5 years thank God. my first son till nearly 3 while also breastfeeding my second. Who was born when my first was 2 years old I did think I would stop at 1 years old so that he can go onto cow milk but I saw the benefits of mother milk for them I’ve carries on.
I have to say it’s not as hard as it looks. Yes they way have teeth and yes iv have been bitten once but like to say they do not do it again. I do not feel their teeth and it gets much easier. My youngest nearly 3 is slowly weaning off and having when he sleeps etc.
To all new mum’s out there do give it a go the blessings of breastfeeding your baby out weights bottle by far.
Weaning between 2-4yrs when my child is toddler with a mouthful of teeth?! Sorry, but for most women breastfeeding is rough and to stick it out that long sounds miserable, not to mention impractical. It makes sense if that would help with sagging, but it’s not going to happen.
Words spoken by a women who has obviously never breastfed a toddler with h a mouthful of teeth. It’s not a big deal! They might bite … maybe once??? You jump from being startled, the child cries because they realize they’ve hurt you and then they never bite again. End of story. I’ve breastfed 3 toddlers for 2-4 years. Same thing every time.
I’m a new mother and currently breastfeeding my 3 week old baby. I started out with 34D and I am now 34DD. I’ve had friends tell me their boobs get smaller, larger, saggy, or perky after so I guess it all just depends on your body type. But idk if this makes you feel any better but I wish my boobs will get smaller after breastfeeding. When they’re bigger I feel like the areola looks big and dark and I don’t like it 🙁 I really hope they do go down even more than my prepregnancy size.
Hi where did you purchase the Somaluxe firming cream