Linda Pohl,

>I have never seen research anywhere that supports the notion that pregnancy
>OR breastfeeding wil make breasts saggy.  I do see it quoted all of the time
>though.  I have even heard one doctor suggest that wearing bras make breasts
>saggy. (Much as if you wear your arm in a sling all of the time, eventually
>your muscles will atrophy and your arm will droop.)  Anyone have any
>research???  Kathrine D., do you know how other cultures see pregnancy or
>lactation affecting the "perkiness" of breasts?


Well, Linda, there really isn't much mention of this in the anthropological
literature, but several people have written about using breast "perkiness"
as an assessment of age/reproductive status, in that only you, nulliparous
women have perky breasts, and only for a few years.  In Mali, people talk
about whether or not a woman's breasts have "fallen", meaning given in to
gravity, once they get big enough.  I think it has a whole lot to do with
size and gravity, and if pregnancy and breastfeeding make your breasts
bigger and heavier, then they will sag more.  Also, I have to disagree with
the sling analogy, as there aren't any muscles in the breast to be
atrophying -- it's all glandular and fat tissue, isn't it?  And wearing or
not wearing a bra shouldn't affect ones pectoral muscles.  People in Mali
usually don't wear bras, and they do a lot of millet pounding, which
involves heavy manual labor involving the arms raised over the head
repeatedly and brought down with great force -- so their breasts are
constantly flinging up and down, whomp/whomp/whomp -- and I assume that
contributes to their sagginess.  Also, they tie their children onto their
backs with a length of cloth which is tied right across the chest, above the
breasts, or over the top of the breasts, and which shoves the breasts down
-- all the force of the weight of the baby is shared between resting on
their hips and the cloth stretched across their chests.  This surely
contributes also to women whose "breasts" are really down by their waist,
attached by long ropes of skin.  This doesn't seem to interfere with
breastfeeding at all.

Kathy D.