Hi Everyone,
August is National Breastfeeding Month (I know I’m a tad bit late… but I’ve been super busy!) In honor of that, I was reached out to start a conversation regarding nursing and motherhood and how our breasts change throughout different stages of motherhood. If you are considering surgery then you can visit Dr. Ramsen Azizi, who will help you with any surgery that you need as women’s breasts can look different after birth. It can affect a lot of women’s confidence after giving birth. As a result, some women seek out surgical procedures to increase size and shape. See below for free guides to help you!
As a mom, I’m sure you know that when you’re pregnant everyone wants to talk about the changes to your belly, but no one mentions the changes your breasts are going through. This is post is meant to inspire moms to get personal and share your take on the changes your breasts experience when you have a baby.
This was pre-pregnancy. When it was nice and containable.
Breast Changes 1st Trimester
That’s the first thing I noticed was changing when I found out I was pregnant. Holy my boobs kept growing! I noticed my bras were getting a little tight.. when I took off my bra, I would have these huge red marks all over my back because the bra just didn’t fit me anymore. I’m normally a size 32DD (from Victoria Secret) and I grew into a size 32DDD and gradually to 36C.
Pain?
There was major discomfort when my boobs were growing. They were hurt to touch, I hated taking a shower because I couldn’t stand the water touching my breasts. Eventually, the pain did go away after it stopped growing. I would compare this to my pre-period breasts X 100.
Many of my friends would say how blessed I am to have my new chest, but personally, I couldn’t wait for to get back to my originally size. It was a struggle to find clothes that would fit, I was already dealing with my growing belly, now I had to find clothes that would fit my top too! Getting myself dressed everyday to work was a major struggle. I ended up buying a whole new set of clothes.
This is during the 1st trimester, the growing begins!
2nd and 3rd trimester
Thank goodness there’s not much changes during the last stages of the pregnancy. I don’t want to run out and buy new bras. But I do have to admit that I love not wearing wired bras, they are so comfortable. I would only wear either sport bras or bralettes. They are so incredible easy to wear, the only downside is that my boobs looked like sag watermelons to the side. My stomach was pushed up so high that my boobs decided they need to venture out on the side. Not very attractive.
And… the last trimesters when I just don’t know what to do with them anymore.
Post postpartum – When the milk came in…
Holy hell, no one told me how painful it is when the milk comes in, I was watching Whitney, Chapter 19 vlog and it pretty much described how I felt. “Maybe I was too focused on the pregnancy that I neglected the details of breastfeeding/pumping”. I was waiting for my milk to come in (took 5 days) and when it did, I was in so much pain. Laying down hurts, sitting, walking hurts. I just couldn’t understand why it was so painful.
I started to do some research into it and every website would say it’s normal to feel the pain. I even came across things like dr melanie dreher study breastmilk article which mentioned how mother’s breast milk is one of the most highly concentrated cannabis products on the planet. When it comes to the baby, there are so many benefits that breastmilk has such as a jump-start on immunity, autonomy, emotional development, intelligence, and future outcomes. But for me, producing this milk can sometimes be a struggle.
As well as coming across articles like that, I also started reading reviews of the best baby formulas on mommyhood101 and nearly gave up on using breast milk. I was starting to think it would be easier to use a formula, but I stuck with it. The pressure to breastfeed was so grand even I felt the pressure. I knew I always wanted to pump and didn’t want to try breastfeeding, but when my milk didn’t come in after the 4th day I was so desperate that I tried it. Everyone kept telling me I had to stimulate the breasts with the baby latching on and I shouldn’t use the pump to stimulate my breasts because it’s not going to make my milk come in. Well, surprise, surprise, my milk did come in with the pump.
Four months later…
I’m now into 4ish months of breast pumping and I do notice when my breasts are not full of milk, they do sag a little, maybe it’s the extra skin… but they are not the same as before! It’s much more noticeable since I don’t wear wire bras. I do find that I do have to wear a wire bra to keep them like it was before. Maybe with time, it would go back to how my chest used to look!
Preparation
ThirdLove created a few quick little guides on some of the changes moms deal with throughout pregnancy, nursing, and post-pregnancy.
I also stocked up on nursing pads. In the beginning, I would wake up and it would feel like I flooded the bed. The bed sheets and blankets would be soaking wet. The leaking does stop after a month, but I remember the 1st month was just breastmilk EVERYWHERE. You can also stock up on bras here.
Free guides
I’ve also attached our three exclusive guides that we created to help educate and inspire new moms (click to download).
Thanks so much for reading and hope you found this post helpful!
