Beauty and the Breast-Feeder
New moms with saggy breasts will have to think of another excuse to justify cosmetic surgery, because breast-feeding is not responsible, say researchers at the University of Kentucky.
“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 breastfeeding did to my breasts,” said Dr. Brian Rinker, a UK plastic surgeon.
So Rinker set out to find the truth. He and associates studied 132 women over an eight-year period. The women were an average age of 39 and had a previous pregnancy; most had breast-fed a child.
So what’s to blame? Pin the chest-sagging on smoking, age and the number of times they have been pregnant.
“Smoking breaks down a protein in the skin called elastin, which gives youthful skin its elastic appearance and supports the breasts” Rinker said. “So it would make sense that it would have an adverse effect on the breasts.”
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