How women can minimize or even completely avoid saggy breasts from breastfeeding with proper dietary preparation and strategic weaning 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 because they’ve been warned 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 with Mother Nature’s best will ultimately sacrifice the firmness of breast tissue.
Are saggy breasts post nursing really just part and parcel of the process?
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 greatly lessen the impact.
In some cases, there can be little to no difference in breast appearance after pregnancy and nursing.
It really is possible to birth and nurse several children with little change in the appearance of the bosom after weaning the youngest child.
Could Saggy Breasts Syndrome perhaps primarily be the result of the appalling diet of most nursing mothers?
Does the modern, accepted approach to weaning abruptly also play a huge role in the loss of breast integrity?
Let’s take a look!
Diet for Strong Breast Tissue
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 to embrace a traditional diet that includes butter, cream, full fat yogurt and other animal fats to maximize elastic breast tissue.
This also means avoiding toxic vegetable oils from factory-produced, low cholesterol spreads, dressings, and other processed foods.
This ideal pregnancy and nursing diet provides suggestions for daily fat intake.
The reason healthy fats in the diet help avoid saggy breasts is that every cell in your body has a cellular membrane that is ideally composed of at least 50% saturated fat.
When the cell membranes of the skin and tissues are composed of the proper fats, they are strong, resilient, and highly elastic.
Healthy Fats = Healthy Skin
If you avoid saturated fats and starve your skin of what it needs, the cell membranes will be improperly formed with an oval instead of a perfectly round shape.
This increases the risk of irreparable damage from the stretching and straining of the skin and breast tissue from nursing.
Incidentally, plenty of saturated fats in the diet is also key to avoiding stretch marks on the breasts when the milk rapidly comes in a few days after baby is born.
Skin cell membranes comprised of 50%+ saturated fat will be elastic and resilient from this sudden strain!
The benefit is stronger breast tissue that can return to its original pre-pregnancy and pre-nursing shape with as little change as possible.
Another benefit is that the breasts are more resistant to mastitis.
Elusive Nutrients
Plenty of vitamin K2 in the diet is important for breast tissue integrity as well.
This largely ignored nutrient is in the superfood natto in large amounts. Japanese women who consume it daily enjoy superior skin elasticity and resistance to sagging and wrinkling.
Low Vitamin K2 in the diet is literally the vitamin deficiency that is written all over your face (and breasts).
Over 90% of people are estimated to be seriously deficient in this nutrient!
Grassfed butter, ghee, 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.
Interestingly, women in traditional Chinese provinces like Chongqing are encouraged to eat up to 10 eggs per day along with plenty of chicken and (1)
Without a doubt, arachidonic acid (AA) is an underappreciated fat for maintaining healthy skin.
It works by ensuring the proper formation of junctures between skin cells.
Without enough arachidonic acid in the diet, skin cannot adequately maintain moisture and is more susceptible to damage.
When the gaps are larger than they need to be, the water between cells evaporates from missing tight cell-to-cell junctions. (2)
Ideal Weaning Age
In addition to diet, the weaning approach a woman employs significantly impacts the perkiness versus sagginess of her bosoms at the conclusion of breastfeeding.
The modern approach to weaning is for Mom to initiate the process and do so fairly suddenly once the child starts eating solid foods or she goes back to work.
Moms beware: 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 (hence, nursing breasts are at their largest size).
Stopping abruptly at this point is not a good idea!
It can be a primary cause for excessively saggy breasts similar to what happens when an obese person loses weight rapidly after gastric bypass surgery.
Tapering After Baby is on Solids
The better way to wean is as gradually as possible, ideally somewhere between the 2-4 year mark.
While this may seem to be a long time by modern standards, extended breastfeeding has many long-term health benefits for baby. (3)
When weaning is very gradual, the the demand for nursing eases off slowly as baby’s appetite for solid food increases.
This gives the body plenty of time to slowly shrink and reabsorb the breast tissue.
Skin that stretched and expanded to accommodate large quantities of breastmilk when the child was an infant can gradually be reabsorbed.
This strategic weaning approach greatly minimizes or can even completely prevent issues with sagging.
Think of the difference between someone who loses weight at a rapid pace (such as after gastric bypass surgery) versus someone who loses weight slowly but surely with improvements in diet and exercise alone.
In the first scenario, large amounts of excess, sagging skin usually need to be removed by a second surgery a year or two down the track.
The second scenario presents far fewer problems with excess, sagging skin with surgery likely not needed at all.
Extended Breastfeeding is a Traditional Practice
Nursing a child until 2-4 years old mimics the practice of Traditional Societies. (4)
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 until the child was a young toddler.
Careful attention and thought to the diet well before pregnancy and during nursing combined with a slow 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 and perkiness afterward!
(1) Successful Breastfeeding and Alternatives
(2) Precious Yet Perilous
(3) Do You Think Breastfeeding a 3-Year-Old is Strange? In the Ancient World, It Saved Lives
(3) Fat and Energy Contents of Expressed Human Breast Milk in Prolonged Lactation
After 4 kids and 20 plus years of nursing –I also feel it is the number of pregnancies that may account for the sag–but I am not a pro bra wearer either.
Wish I had read all of this 10 years ago before I started nursing all my kids! ha ha ha 🙂
Breastfeeding doesn’t cause sagging. Being Pregnant does. I really wish people would stop perpetuating this myth. The breasts swell regardless of whether you PLAN on nursing anyway. I would be really great if you would mention that in this blog. I feel like even though you’re trying to help with advice for preventing it, which is great; pregnant and lactating women DEFINITELY need some help in the diet department but saying the sagging happens after the fact is flat out wrong and sabotaging.
“A study published in the Aesthetic Surgery Journal found that the number of past pregnancies had a more significant impact on the shape of the breasts than breastfeeding. The researchers concluded that ptosis after pregnancy was caused not by breastfeeding but by hormone regression and increased strain on breast skin from the engorgement of pregnancy. The article states:
‘A history of breastfeeding was not found to be associated with a greater degree of breast ptosis in patients presenting for postpregnancy aesthetic breast surgery. Age and cigarette smoking, both of which are associated with a loss of skin elasticity, were found to be positive predictors for breast ptosis, as were larger prepregnancy bra cup size and number of pregnancies. Whereas breast ptosis appears to increase with each additional pregnancy, breastfeeding does not seem to worsen these effects.’ “
I think this has much to do with genetics and what size breasts you start out with before pregnancy. My mom had perky breasts till she was in her mid 50-ies. She breastfed us. I have perky breasts, even after nursing two kids for 2.5 years. I am 45. My sister had a bit more larger breast and looks more like my grandma on my dad’s side. Her breasts were droopy after the first child. But we are from Europe and we do not start to wear a bra as early as they do here and if you had perky and small breasts you did not wear a bra every day actually.
Currently nursing 1 year old. She has little to no interest in solid foods. She might eat 5 bites of fried egg yolk if it is off of my plate. One time she actually ate 1/4 of an avocado. I was shocked that she ate that much. Is there any reason to be concerned? I am trying to follow her lead but she LOVES nursing and is eating 6x a day still. All seems to be normal and healthy.
My babies love nursing too and rarely ate anything before the age of one, my last baby didn’t really start solids until he was around 15 months old. All babies are different and as long as you are offering her a variety of nutrient rich foods she will become interested, all in her own time. 🙂 Just make sure that your diet is the best in can possibly be.
Thank you for the encouragement, Megan. This baby is so different from our first 2! She is blessing that we waited and prayed for 8 years to get. In that time we have dramatically changed how we eat. In a way it feels like the first time all over again since we are doing things differently.
Sarah, our third baby has been like you describe. She’s 19 mos now and eating more but didn’t really become interested in food until 14 mos or so. Even now she’ll still skip meals once and a while. Following her lead and nursing on cue is perfect. You’re doing just what she needs!
My daughter never liked eating until she turned 18 months old. She eats like a champ. I never insisted or pushed her. Wait and see, they change a lot! And try to eat by saying yumm, hmmm, she will come around and eat:)
Wish I would have known this!! But if what Grace said is true then that’s why mine are droopy & quite ugly now! I lose my baby weight very rapidly after baby, so fast that I feel frail & this second time around, I’ve eaten healthier than most people i know! Is there any way to make already stretch mark, saggy ones heal up or strengthen?
Rebound exercise (on a quality mini trampoline) perks them up as it does all saggy skin from either weight loss or pregnancy skin.
doing this would be PAINFUL for me, unless I had my breasts bound tight to my body, and wouldn’t that cancel out the benefit of doing it?
Breastfeeding doesn’t cause sagging. Being Pregnant does. I really wish people would stop perpetuating this myth. The breasts swell regardless of whether you PLAN on nursing anyway. I would be really great if you would mention that in this blog. I feel like even though you’re trying to help with advice for preventing it, which is great; pregnant and lactating women DEFINITELY need some help in the diet department but saying the sagging happens after the fact is flat out wrong and sabotaging.
A study published in the Aesthetic Surgery Journal found that the number of past pregnancies had a more significant impact on the shape of the breasts than breastfeeding. The researchers concluded that ptosis after pregnancy was caused not by breastfeeding but by hormone regression and increased strain on breast skin from the engorgement of pregnancy. The article states:
“A history of breastfeeding was not found to be associated with a greater degree of breast ptosis in patients presenting for postpregnancy aesthetic breast surgery. Age and cigarette smoking, both of which are associated with a loss of skin elasticity, were found to be positive predictors for breast ptosis, as were larger prepregnancy bra cup size and number of pregnancies. Whereas breast ptosis appears to increase with each additional pregnancy, breastfeeding does not seem to worsen these effects.”
Thanks so much for posting this research Ashley. I’ve heard this myth about sagging breasts a lot and am glad to know a resource to refer people to for accurate information.
The saggy-ness comes more from pregnancy than breast feeding. This is just one quick link, but I know I’ve read it often elsewhere. http://www.phdinparenting.com/2010/04/04/sagging-breasts-whats-to-blame/#.UEdrx4l5mc0
Not that all doctors are right, but I’ve heard this from a few of ours as well.
I’m an IBCLC (certified Lactation Consultant) and this is right – sagginess happens because of breast changes during pregnancy and age too – everything starts to soften with age anyway. Not that eating a healthy diet couldn’t be helpful for keeping skin more elastic longer.
Actually, ABC posted a story yesterday about how nursing can be beneficial to the look of breasts! Yay! http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=17143971