Are you a woman who has had a breast lift or breast augmentation? Did you know that you can still breastfeed after having breast augmentation surgery?
In this article, we’ll discuss what to expect when breastfeeding after a breast lift or augmentation. We’ll also go over some tips and tricks that may help you to successfully breastfeed your child. We will also discuss the aspects of Can I breastfeed after breast lift, can you breastfeed after areola reduction, can you breastfeed after a breast implant, and tips for breastfeeding after breast reduction.
What is a Breast Lift?
A breast lift involves removing excess skin from the breasts and repositioning the nipple/areola complex higher on the chest wall. This procedure can improve the size of your breasts and enhance their shape, as well as remove stretch marks and other scars from previous surgeries. A breast lift can be performed alone or in combination with other cosmetic procedures like an augmentation (or “boob job”), reduction (to reduce size), or revision (to correct previous problems).
Breastfeeding After Breast Lift Surgery
Some women choose to have their children later in life—sometimes even after having undergone a surgical procedure like a breast lift or augmentation! If this is something you’re considering, it’s important for both you and your doctor to understand how breastfeeding will affect your body, so that together you can make an informed decision about whether or not this is something
Breastfeeding after surgery is a great question that frequently comes up during breast lift consultations with Dr. George Sanders. It is so common that Dr. Sanders wanted to write an entire blog post covering the topic, in the hopes that it will help women considering surgery feel better educated about the issue. Here, Dr. Sanders reveals three important truths about breastfeeding and breast lift surgery.
Breast lift usually has no impact on the ability to breastfeed.
It is absolutely possible to breastfeed after breast lift (and breast augmentation and breast reduction) surgery. If you are contemplating breast lift, there is no reason to believe that your ability to breastfeed will be impaired by your decision to undergo surgery. In the large majority of cases, women are able to successfully lactate and nurse their babies after breast lift surgery.
One important caveat is that Dr. Sanders should be made aware of your desire to breastfeed after surgery. At the time of your surgical consultation, you should explain your goals and inquire about what can be done to accommodate them. Dr. Sanders can design certain parts of your surgical plan with this in mind. For example, he may place the incisions in a particular location, dissect the tissue differently or make other modifications to preserve the nipple ducts and prevent the formation of scar tissue. Keeping as much of the central breast mound intact as possible is important to avoid disturbing milk production.
Breastfeeding after surgery is a great question that frequently comes up during breast lift consultations with Dr. George Sanders. It is so common that Dr. Sanders wanted to write an entire blog post covering the topic, in the hopes that it will help women considering surgery feel better educated about the issue. Here, Dr. Sanders reveals three important truths about breastfeeding and breast lift surgery.
Breast lift usually has no impact on the ability to breastfeed.
It is absolutely possible to breastfeed after breast lift (and breast augmentation and breast reduction) surgery. If you are contemplating breast lift, there is no reason to believe that your ability to breastfeed will be impaired by your decision to undergo surgery. In the large majority of cases, women are able to successfully lactate and nurse their babies after breast lift surgery.
One important caveat is that Dr. Sanders should be made aware of your desire to breastfeed after surgery. At the time of your surgical consultation, you should explain your goals and inquire about what can be done to accommodate them. Dr. Sanders can design certain parts of your surgical plan with this in mind. For example, he may place the incisions in a particular location, dissect the tissue differently or make other modifications to preserve the nipple ducts and prevent the formation of scar tissue. Keeping as much of the central breast mound intact as possible is important to avoid disturbing milk production.
can you breastfeed after areola reduction
A breast reduction can be a major, life-enhancing procedure for women who suffer from the physical and emotional pain that can occur from having large breasts. While the procedure is not without risks, it is still considered to be a safe, effective solution to creating a smaller, more comfortable and more shapely breast. A common question we receive from women who are not finished having children is, “Can I breastfeed after a breast reduction?” If you share this concern, you have come to the right place for advice.
Breastfeeding After Breast Reduction Surgery
In short: Yes, it is possible for someone who has had a breast reduction to breastfeed. However, there are some risks and caveats to consider before undergoing breast reduction surgery. Namely, breast reduction surgery can result in decreased milk production and nipple sensitivity. Women tend to have a better milk supply if their reduction surgery has been carried out more than five years before pregnancy.
How Breast Reduction Surgery Can Affect Breastfeeding
There are a few different ways to facilitate breast reduction surgery. Keeping the milk duct system intact is paramount to preserving the ability to breastfeed. Incisions made under the breast fold to the armpit are less likely to result in difficulties breastfeeding. If nerves around the areola are cut or damaged during surgery, the chances of low milk production increase. Rest assured that the most common breast reductions leave the nipple attached while cutting around it. Nerves typically regrow and full sensation is regained in these cases. In cases of a “free nipple graft,” where the nipple is removed and then reattached as a skin graft, some sensation may return, but being able to breastfeed is unlikely.
Healing After Breast Reduction Surgery
It can take up to two years after breast reduction surgery for nerves to regenerate. In situations where milk ducts are severed during surgery, they can go through recanalization where they reconnect to one another or new transport pathways may develop. Lactation actually triggers the body to create alternate routes, so even in situations where milk ducts are severed, breastfeeding is not always impossible. Since there is no guarantee that milk ducts will heal or develop new transport pathways, it is important for women to understand the risks to breastfeeding that go along with breast reduction surgery.
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Breastfeeding Tips for Women Who Have Had Breast Reductions
Strategies to increase milk supply are important for women who have had breast reduction surgery. The first two weeks after birth are the most critical for lactation—the more you feed the infant, the more the breast is stimulated to increase milk-making capacity. If the baby does not latch, consider using a breast pump to maintain this stimulation. Lactation experts are typically experienced in helping women who have had breast reductions with breastfeeding, and can be a wealth of information and support during this time. All methods of increasing milk production should be used: breastfeeding the baby, pumping, breast compression, relaxation techniques, herbal medicines and prescription medications if needed. Emptying the breast is important in increasing milk supply.
Is Breast Reduction Surgery Right for Me?
Allowing for several years between breast reduction surgery and pregnancy is paramount to a woman’s success in breastfeeding. Allowing the breasts and milk ducts the opportunity to heal is critical. Our board-certified plastic surgeon, Dr. Christopher Schaffer, is highly experienced in performing breast reduction surgeries and will offer his expert opinion on your unique situation. He understands the importance of breastfeeding and will always choose breast reduction strategies that preserve milk ducts and as much nipple sensitivity as possible. To schedule your breast reduction consultation, call our office at 205-278-7969.
can you breastfeed after a breast implant
If you’ve had a breast augmentation procedure and are now either pregnant or wanting to start a family, you may be concerned about whether you can safely breastfeed. First, it’s completely safe for your baby to breastfeed with breast implants, but for a more in-depth look, our renowned, board-certified plastic surgeon in Raleigh, Dr. Ortiz, is sharing what you need to know about how breast augmentation may affect breastfeeding success.
Is It Safe to Breastfeed with Breast Implants?
Whether you have saline breast implants or silicone implants, it is safe to breastfeed. Because the implant is behind the glands, the ducts and glands are rarely affected. The silicone used in modern implants is unlikely to leach into breast milk and if a saline implant ruptures, you’ll know immediately when it happens.
Does Breast Augmentation Affect Breastfeeding?
While it is safe to breastfeed, and the surgery itself shouldn’t affect your ability to do so, it’s important to look at how the implant is placed to determine if it may affect milk supply.
First, let’s look at the two ways an implant may be placed:
In both cases, the implant is placed behind milk ducts, so this shouldn’t affect supply or ability to nurse successfully.
The greater factor to affect breastfeeding outcome is where the breast augmentation incision is located. Most breast augmentation procedures are performed with an incision along the inframammary fold, which is the crease, or natural boundary where the breast and chest meet. The incision is below the breast and the implant is placed from there, completely bypassing the parts of the breast associated with nursing.
However, if the incision is made through the areola, the nerves and ducts may have been separated, and sometimes this can block the letdown reflex that tells your body when to release breast milk. Women who have lost sensation in the nipple are more at risk for this complication.
While a majority of women with breast implants successfully breastfeed after their procedure, if you do have difficulties with supply or the letdown reflex, a lactation consultant can often help you with these challenges.
Does Breastfeeding Affect the Look of Implants?
In addition to wondering how breast augmentation affects breastfeeding, many women wonder how breastfeeding affects the look of their breast implants. Pregnancy and nursing can cause changes to breast tissue, including the size and shape of the breast as well as cause sagging. The good news is that a study performed by Dr. Jeffrey Salomon, an assistant clinical professor at Yale University School of Medicine found no differences in measurement or sagging caused by breastfeeding in women with implants versus women with implants who didn’t breastfeed after pregnancy.
Every woman’s body responds differently to pregnancy and breastfeeding. If you do experience changes to your breasts and you feel your implants don’t suit your post-baby body, or you are concerned about sagging or excess volume, Dr. Ortiz can assist you with an implant revision or implant removal that will lead to an outcome you are comfortable with.
Schedule a Consultation to Discuss Breast Augmentation or Implant Revision Today
If you are considering breast augmentation but have additional questions, or you have had augmentation in the past but would like to have your implants removed, we can help. Schedule a consultation with Dr. Ortiz today at 919-891-1582 or complete our easy-to-use online contact form below.
tips for breastfeeding after breast reduction
The plastic surgeon took off a total of 3 1/2 pounds off my chest and created more manageable C+ breasts. I chose a reduction for mostly vanity reasons, but I hoped to lessen the developing “widow’s hump” and shoulder strain.
During the planning stages, the surgeon told me I would have a 50 percent chance of being able to breastfeed. It was a toss-away comment without substantial science behind it. But it probably wouldn’t have mattered what the stats were; I was a teenager who was mildly repulsed by the idea of breastfeeding.
My self-centered teen self would have been shocked at how that decision came to haunt me when I struggled with breastfeeding my first child.
Fast forward 11 years after my surgery and I was holding my crying newborn. My milk had come in, but not much of it was coming out. I had told every doctor, nurse, and lactation consultant that I had a prior breast reduction, but nobody had specific ideas on how to help. They tried different holds, nipple shields, and mumbled something about fenugreek.
Breastfeeding was a failure. I had chosen to have plastic surgery, and now my son and I were both living with the consequences.
Breast reductions are not uncommon. Almost 500,000 women have breast reductions every year. Breastfeeding after reduction even has its own acronym — BFAR. And there are enough women who try it to spawn a BFAR support website and Facebook group.
But there is also a lot of misinformation and ignorance of the challenges that BFAR women face. There are very few studies on how breast surgery affects breastfeeding.
There are different types of reduction surgery. Women who want to breastfeed should ask their surgeon if the nipple will be removed completely or just moved. The more of the nipple and milk ducts that were left attached, the more likely that breastfeeding will work. Amazingly, severed milk ducts can reattach, but it can affect how much milk is produced.
Breastfeeding works on a feedback loop between nerves, hormones, and ducts. Any damage to this loop can affect how much milk is produced and delivered to the baby.
But the good news is that the nerves can relearn their job, and ducts can start to work after a baby is born. As soon as your baby is born, emptying your breasts and letting them refill is very important to encourage the recanalization of the nerves.
When I was pregnant with my second child, I was much more proactive. I interviewed lactation consultants while pregnant until I found someone who had experience with breastfeeding after a reduction. She came over every day for the first week. When it was clear that my son was not gaining enough weight on day seven, she cracked open the can of formula and showed me how to finger feed him.
Like most BFARs, I had low milk supply. The feedback system between the milk production and the milk delivery system was slow and unpredictable. With my second child, I pumped for the first month, took blessed thistle and fenugreek, and did breast compressions while I was nursing.
I also took domperidone, a prescription drug that increases milk supply. Domperidone is not FDA approved or available in the United States but has been available in Canada (where I live) for 20 years. But even with all this, I still did not make enough milk to feed my baby breast milk exclusively.
To make sure my baby was getting enough milk, I always tube fed at the breast.
Tube feeding is easier than it sounds, especially with an easy baby, which luckily, described my second child. First, you latch the baby onto your breast, and then you slip a tiny tube that is sitting in some formula into their mouth (either in a bottle or in a lactation system). As the baby sucks, they get both formula and breast milk.
It’s impossible to know how much breast milk my son received, but we guesstimate that his intake was about 40 percent breast milk. Once my son started solids at 6 months, I was able to drop the tube and nurse him on demand.
Successful breastfeeding can mean different things — for some, it is breastfeeding on demand, for others, it may be supplementing breast milk with formula. BFARs, especially, have to be open to different definitions of success. I have never felt more successful than when I was breastfeeding my son while supplementing with formula at the breast.
One of the amazing things about the human body is that the milk supply increases with each pregnancy. When I had my daughter 3 years later, I did not need to supplement her with formula at all, although I took domperidone daily.
Looking back on the experience, I still see my success with my second child as the true victory. I couldn’t have done it without a supportive partner, a knowledgeable lactation consultant, and a pediatrician who trusted me and was willing to be flexible.
If you are considering breastfeeding after breast surgery:
You may have to define what success looks like in a different way than you want, and that can be painful. Acknowledge what your limits are. Being a new mom is difficult enough without also trying to overcome physical limitations to nursing. Breastfeeding can be a wonderful thing, but it’s also possible to have the skin-to-skin contact and lots of nourishing feeding interactions while bottle feeding.
Now that my kids are older, I know that the dichotomies between breastfeeding and formula, and good mother versus bad mother are false. There are no health variations between my three kids and their different feeding methods. No one remembers or cares if your adolescent was formula fed. Successfully breastfeeding my kids has given me satisfaction, but it is just one more thing in the beautiful mix of being a mother.
Emma Waverman is a freelance journalist living in Toronto with her three kids, husband, and noisy dog. Her food and lifestyle writing can be found in magazines, newspapers, and all over the internet. She is the co-author of the best-selling family cookbook “Whining and Dining: Mealtime Survival for Picky Eaters and Families Who Love Them.” Follow her adventures and typos on Instagram and Twitter at @emmawaverman.