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Subject:
From:
Lisa Marasco IBCLC <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Lactation Information and Discussion <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Fri, 2 Nov 2007 08:54:36 -0700
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>>never give up....<<

There is a mom on the MOBI group who shared her incredible story with me.
She says that as a teenager she had a fairly flat chest, such that though
she lived in Florida, she refused to wear tank tops or anything else
revealing because she was so ashamed. Her pre-pregnancy bra size was A-AA,
and she described her breasts as "pointy" and "conical" and not rounded like
other women's breasts.  We don't have any "before" pictures of her because
she refused to be photographed when nursing at that time out of
embarrassment. She didn't have children until her thirties, and continued to
have the same breast tissue until the second/third child.

Here is part of what she wrote, share with permission:

"I was an AA-A prior to my first pregnancy, and not quite a B by the end of
my first pregnancy and during nursing.  With my second child I was a B
post-partum and I grew to DD or a bit larger after all those months pumping
and nursing (he weaned at 5 mos. but I pumped for 14 1/2 until my next
pregnancy.  I had quite a bit of breast growth near the end of my third
pregnancy, and it wasn't from weight-gain, as I only gained 18 pounds w/
pregnancy #1, 9 pounds with pregnancy #2 and 13 pounds with pregnancy #3.  I
lost 20+ pounds during the first parts of  pregnancies #1 and #3 (my girls),
and about 18 pounds with pregnancy #2 (my boy).  I also had more milk with
my girls, and none (well, only 2-4 ounces per day for the first 6 weeks or
so post-partum in spite of pumping 8-12x per day and nursing as my premature
baby would allow).  #1 was born at 37 weeks, #2 at 33 weeks (emergency
c-section), and #3 at 40.5 weeks (vbac).  After giving birth to my third
child and nursing for a few months, I was an H+."


"The changes in shape/size/tissue structure were dramatic, and I think that
all the pumping that I did (after every feeding and then 4-8x per day once I
started eping) for 14 1/2 months for my second child played a big role in
the development of the extra tissue.  I now have full tissue under the arms,
and on the top portion of the breasts, and even though I'm producing a very
small amount of milk now (I had several recent miscarriages, one at 10 weeks
so my milk had dried up from pregnancy) there is still the fullness and the
lack of space at the chest wall, even with the decrease in breast size that
comes with producing less milk.

I don't know if taking alfalfa (some, but not a lot of it) for the last few
weeks of pregnancy may have helped, or even just going past 37 1/2 weeks
gestation (my third child was born at 40 1/2 weeks).  I had hyperemesis all
the way through all three pregnancies, with the exception of that last 1 1/2
weeks with my third child, so maybe some beneficial change in hormones
occurred.  At any rate, my breasts really had a distinctly pre-pubescent
character to them when my 1st and 2nd children were born, and now they have
a normal appearance."

I'm a smaller size now (F) instead of the H+ that I developed into a month
or so after these pictures were taken, but the shape and tissue remains the
same and the gap at the chest wall is gone."

She isn't kidding. I have her "now" pictures, taken in a declining phase of
lactation, and they are amazing. You'd never believe she was the same person
described earlier. I'd like to figure out what exactly was the difference
for her, too.

Lisa Marasco

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