You might mention even biopsy.  I saw a mother who had a biopsy of a
lump.  The surgeon (twit) did a periareolar incision.  Even though it
involved only half the areola, she produced only very little milk on
that side.  It is possible that she would only have produced a little
on that side anyhow, but my gut feeling is that the surgery did it.  I
couldn't imagine why a periareolar incision was done, when, in fact,
it was obvious that it was not necessary.

It got me to musing about our ideas of the breast.  In no other field
of surgery would the surgeon go about deliberately to destroy the
normal function of the part he was operating on.  For example, plastic
surgeons do nose jobs.  They would not consider it a good result, no
matter how good the nose looked, if the patient were unable to breathe
(that almost came out "breast") through his nose afterwards.  Yet
surgeons do surgery on the breast and are completely oblivious to the
fact they might be destroying the function of the breast.  Actually,
not true.  In this case, he felt he was *preserving* the function,
because for him the function of the breast is aesthetic, not producing
milk.  The light finally went on. That is why they can do breast
augmentation surgery with a periareolar incision which destroys the
milk producing capacity.  This is unusual surgery up this way in
Toronto, but apparently in some US areas, the periareolar incision is
the *preferred* method of doing breast augmentation surgery.  AARGH!

Jack Newman, MD, FRCPC