Will Breastfeeding Cause Your Breasts to Sag?

Will breastfeeding cause your breasts to sag? Short answer: not really. Here’s what you need to know and how to prevent sag.

Will breastfeeding cause your breasts to sag? Short answer: not really. Here’s what you need to know and how to prevent sag.

Let’s get real for a sec, shall we? We know that breastfeeding is good for our babies and we’re all about making sure our tiny tots are healthy. Even if someone came out with a study that said breastfeeding turns your breasts into fire-breathing dragons, we’d still do it. Still, that doesn’t mean that we don’t think about its impacts on our bodies, right? One of those concerns, of course, is whether or not breastfeeding will make your girls sag. Let’s find out the truth behind the sag, and what you can do to prevent it!

Does Breastfeeding Cause Your Breasts to Sag

The short story: sag isn’t really a major concern during breastfeeding. Research shows that sagging is actually caused by the changes that your body goes through during pregnancy. Your breasts get fuller and heavier while you’re pregnant to prepare for milk production. This is a process that occurs naturally and results in the stretching of the ligaments supporting your breasts. This stretching is what might contribute to sagging breasts post-pregnancy whether you breastfeed or not.

In most cases, the size of the breasts increases drastically several days after giving birth. However, they soon return to their pregnancy size after two weeks or so. Once you stop breastfeeding, and return to your pre-pregnancy weight, the breasts might return to their pre-pregnancy size.

There are also many other factors that contribute to breast sagging. These include:

  • having more than one pregnancy
  • having a large bra size pre-pregnancy
  • carrying a pregnancy at an older age
  • having a raised body mass index
  • excessive smoking
  • aging
  • drastic weight gain or weight loss

Most of these factors cause the skin to stretch rapidly over a short period of time thus affecting the skin supporting the breasts. As for aging and smoking, they make the skin lose its elasticity, making it difficult for the skin around the breasts to retract if it stretches. Obviously, you can’t stop the aging process, but you can avoid smoking.

How to keep your breasts firm while breastfeeding

Although having the breasts droop a little is inevitable, there are several things you can do to keep them a bit firm. To start with, ensure that you put on a well-fitting bra that offers great support during and after pregnancy. This removes the extra pressure on the ligaments and prevents them from over-stretching. It is also important to avoid drastic weight loss or weight gain during and after pregnancy. If you want to lose weight, create a plan and do so over a period of several months to give your skin time to adjust to the changes.

All in all, breast drooping can occur at any stage in life. Don’t let the fear keep you from breastfeeding since it is not the cause of sagging breasts. All you have to do is make healthier life choices and you’ll be good to go. As a matter of fact, the only way “natural” to keep your breasts firm and perky for the rest of your life is by not getting pregnant or not growing old. Since achieving both is literally impossible, enjoy breastfeeding your young one. It is worth it!

Do you have any questions about breast changes during breastfeeding? Share your thoughts and concerns below!

 

 

6 thoughts on “Will Breastfeeding Cause Your Breasts to Sag?”

  1. Not an issue I will face but it is a good read anyways since most people don’t seem to understand how the human body changes.

  2. The Blonde Diary Channel

    Agree that breastfeeding is very important for the baby. Unfortunately, there are many changes that happen to our body that we can’t prevent. I feel like once you see the little creature, you stop being selfish and its all about them.

  3. We can’t avoid the natural process of the nature because it’s part of our life but I totally agree with you to avoid things that cause the sagging. Well thought article!

  4. Annemarie LeBlanc

    Thank you for writing this post. I know that that is only a myth, probably created to scare women to avoid breastfeeding altogether. A good support bra is what we need, especially those who have large breasts.

  5. It’s been forever since my kids were little, and honestly I didn’t worry too much about the dreaded sag back then. The benifits of breast feeding seemed to far outweigh anything else. At the time I wondered if my future self would wish I’d have done it differently, but I figured what the heck, it’s only downhill (literally) from here, folks. x

  6. Well these tips are good. Many of my friends are getting married. Will surely show them as many of them are expecting their first child.

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