Breast-feeding isn't such a drag on breasts
Study says nursing isn't the culprit, but smoking has droopy side effect

By Andrea Thompson
updated 11:51 a.m. PT, Fri., Nov. 2, 2007

Breast-feeding won’t make a new mom’s breasts sag, but having more babies might, a new study indicates.

"A lot of times, if a woman comes in for a breast lift or a breast augmentation, she'll say 'I want to fix what breast-feeding did to my breasts,'" said University of Kentucky plastic surgeon Brian Rinker. So he decided to study any possible connection.

Rinker and his colleagues interviewed 132 women who came in for breast lifts or augmentation between 1998 and 2006. On average, the women were 39 years old, and 93 percent had experienced at least one pregnancy. Among the mothers, 58 percent had breast-fed at least one of their children. The average duration of breast-feeding was nine months.

The researchers evaluated the womens' medical history, body mass index (BMI), pre-pregnancy bra cup size and smoking status.

The results of the study, presented this week at a conference of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, showed no difference in the degree of breast ptosis (or sagging) between women who breast-fed and those who didn't.

The main factors that did affect sagging were age, smoking status and the number of pregnancies a woman has had.

Rinker noted that the smoking connection made sense because "smoking breaks down a protein in the skin called elastin, which gives youthful skin its elastic appearance and supports the breast."

Pregnancy also "has a very strong contribution to breast ptosis (sagging)," Rinker said in an email interview. "In fact, our study showed that those negative effects increase with each pregnancy."

Rinker says this finding should alleviate the fears of new mothers over what nursing their child might do to their breasts in the long run and will encourage them to breast-feed because of the health benefits to their infant.

"Women may be reluctant to breast-feed because of this unfounded myth that doing so means the end of youthful breasts," Rinker said. "Now, expectant mothers can relax knowing breast-feeding does not sacrifice the appearance of their breasts."
© 2007 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21599854/

Good thing I don't have bewbies to sag.

:bullcrap I do not smoke and while I do have 3 children I do not find his study to be conclusive. My very small breasts sag from breastfeeding. :refuse

Just had to get that out there after reading the article. :lol

but it's not nursing it is the weight gain and loss from pregnancy as well as age to that causes sagging kwim?

What else are they gonna pin on smoking now? Smoking gives you a loose va-jay-jay? :lmao

Sure it doesn't, tell my boobs that after 2 kids.

Great article, it's good to know it was probably the pg and not the bf'ing that damaged the girls! Gooooo BoobieMilk!

OK, I think this is crap, personally. Breastfeeding itself might not cause it, as in the actual ACT of breastfeeding. But, essentially, it DOES cause it b/c the growth from the milk filling them up, then the shrinking when the milk leaves the breast, that DOES cause them to sag. So, yeah, I don't agree with this AT ALL :D

Sure it doesn't, tell my boobs that after 2 kids.

Exactly :lol

What else are they gonna pin on smoking now? Smoking gives you a loose va-jay-jay? :lmao

:lmao :rofl Thats great!!

My poor girls have been sagging since the 5th grade... I blame it on developing way to early.

Good thing I don't have bewbies to sag.

You would be surprised on how small your boobs can be and still sag. My auntie has like no boobs but what she does have sags a lot. :P

Ok, I have BF all 3 of my kids. 2 for 5-6 weeks and now over 5 months. While BFing may not exactly help the situation I don't believe it is the root cause. I believe it has to do with the weight during pg and then the loss of it afterwards. Mine didn't undergo a huge change during pg but I did go up from a B to a D. It is pretty hard to go back to a B from that and look exactly the same. BFing didn't cause my boobs to go up to that size my weight gain during pg did.

So either way it doesn't matter. If you're pregnant, you'll still have droopy breasts. Hmmmm.........bummer. But i'm sure they're worth it. The kids i mean. ;-)


Side note: Take out the smoking and in with the having kids in the first place and the whole childbirth event..............


What else are they gonna pin on smoking now? Smoking gives you a loose va-jay-jay? :lmao

I know it takes time but how bad does that effect your "tightness" as it were? Just curious. Always wondered but never had anyone to ask..........:dunno

This seems like such a blatant attempt to me to make breastfeeding attractive and who better to pin the side effects of breastfeeding on than the smokers? EVERYTHING is the smokers fault anyway, right? :rofl It's so silly. I have a VERY hard time believing that being engorged with milk, going up a cup size or two suddenly, and having a child draining your breasts just so you can refill every day has NO effect on the sag factor of boobs, but somehow smoking a cigarettes makes them drop it like it's hot. :screwy

Yes, smoking is bad. :talking I am so tired of people being so dishonest about it though. You don't have to LIE to prove it's bad, mkay? :giggle

Yes, smoking is bad. :talking I am so tired of people being so dishonest about it though. You don't have to LIE to prove it's bad, mkay? :giggle

Smoking cigarettes damages elastin, this is not a lie. It has been proven by multiple scientific studies, all I did was google it and found peer reviewed articles in the Journal of the American Medical Association, and from a doctor of dermatology at the MayoClinic, to name just a couple.

If smoking makes your skin sag, and breasts are nothing but hanging skin, why is it so hard to believe smoking makes your breasts sag???

OK, I think this is crap, personally. Breastfeeding itself might not cause it, as in the actual ACT of breastfeeding. But, essentially, it DOES cause it b/c the growth from the milk filling them up, then the shrinking when the milk leaves the breast, that DOES cause them to sag. So, yeah, I don't agree with this AT ALL :D

exactly what i was thinking!!

It seems every day there's something new to blame smoking on. What about women that don't smoke and their breasts sag? Oh lemme guess......second hand smoke????

If smoking is so bad why don't they just outlaw them period? As a smoker I would be devastated if that did ever happen but i mean jeez...

Smoking cigarettes damages elastin, this is not a lie. It has been proven by multiple scientific studies, all I did was google it and found peer reviewed articles in the Journal of the American Medical Association, and from a doctor of dermatology at the MayoClinic, to name just a couple.

If smoking makes your skin sag, and breasts are nothing but hanging skin, why is it so hard to believe smoking makes your breasts sag???

Do a little research into the WHO study on SHS and you will see why I am so skeptical of smoking research. :yes The Mayo Clinic and AMA along with the Cancer Society and groups like truth.com all accept that wonky SHS study done by WHO as fact even though the data concluded the opposite that WHO claimed it did, and it was thrown out in court because the claims and press release were a GIANT piece of lying crap. They cherry picked data to change the results to say what they wanted them to, instead of what they REALLY said, and they were caught doing it. That makes me a little wary of smoking studies. I want to see some real data, not an article about a small study group.

Besides, I looked up studies on elastin breakdown and smoking, and all I could find was studies done on MICE and all they studied was certain cells in the lungs of mice. Lung cells are NOT the same as boobie cells. They also gave the mice at least 4 cigarettes worth of smoke exposure and then immediately killed them giving their cells no time to repair themselves (which it is proven that elastin, specifically lung cells, do). That is a SERIOUS overdose of cigarette smoke for a mouse that is only a few ounces. A human couldn't possibly smoke enough fast enough and often enough to have the same exposure. And they breakdown they found wasn't even earth shattering, even after that much exposure and no time to heal.

I am NOT saying that cigarettes couldn't possibly effect boobie sag. I am just saying that this article is a little bias. :yes

Until I see some actual DATA and not an article with no actual numbers, I am gonna file this in the anti-smoking propoganda pile. ;)

OK, I think this is crap, personally. Breastfeeding itself might not cause it, as in the actual ACT of breastfeeding. But, essentially, it DOES cause it b/c the growth from the milk filling them up, then the shrinking when the milk leaves the breast, that DOES cause them to sag. So, yeah, I don't agree with this AT ALL :D

:yes

OK, I think this is crap, personally. Breastfeeding itself might not cause it, as in the actual ACT of breastfeeding. But, essentially, it DOES cause it b/c the growth from the milk filling them up, then the shrinking when the milk leaves the breast, that DOES cause them to sag. So, yeah, I don't agree with this AT ALL :D

:yes

Until I see some actual DATA and not an article with no actual numbers, I am gonna file this in the anti-smoking propoganda pile. ;)

I googled elastin breakdown and smoking, and I found an actual study done on humans that was published in the British Journal of Dermatology that concluded, "Smoking is an independent risk factor for the increase of elastic fibres in the reticular dermis of nonexposed skin, and it acts on their two main structural components, elastin and microfibrillar component."

Here's the full text if you're interested in reading.....

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1365-2133.2006.07575.x

I don't doubt that there are groups that overexaggerate the effects of SecondHandSmoke(SMS?) but I guess when it comes to science I'm more likely to believe than not if a reasonable amount of research points in the same direction, kwim?

ETA: I like this study b/c it mentioned straight out that there were some conflicting studies, it didn't try to brush them under the rug.

While considering a lift, at least five plastic surgeons I visited for a consult attributed my moderate ptosis to bf.

Of course, there are multiple contributing factors possible, too. Gravity and age, genetic tendencies, weight gain and rapid loss sometimes but not always caused by pregnancies. I never heard smoking mentioned as a probable cause by any doctor. Not to say it would be impossible, considering the loss of elastin angle. But, in my case, I never smoked and I still have to deal with slight sagging.

Whatever the cause, it happens and it happens often as we get older.

OK, I think this is crap, personally. Breastfeeding itself might not cause it, as in the actual ACT of breastfeeding. But, essentially, it DOES cause it b/c the growth from the milk filling them up, then the shrinking when the milk leaves the breast, that DOES cause them to sag. So, yeah, I don't agree with this AT ALL :D


I agree with Brandi. I did not breastfeed either one of my boys. My milk never came in and mine don't sag. So I think it has to do with them getting way bigger because of your milk coming in which mine didn't.