I have been reading the posts about wearing bras at night and half
smiling because this is a battle I have been fighting for at least 13
years.  I think this misimformation about the necessity of wearing a bra
was originally started by those  who used to lurk in  the hospital ward
selling them.  After all if you think that you have to sleep in a bra,.
you will have to buy 4 not 2, right?   And the price of an average
nursing bra here is about $40-50, which is about 1/25 of an average
monthly salary.

I have even heard that bras have anti-engorgement properties, ie, if you
don't wear your bra, and the tighter the better, you will surely have
terrible engorgement!!    So therefore, does that mean that in those
countries where women are not fortunate enough to have bras, the
engorgement rate is 100%.

Anyway, I have assigned the med students and the nursing students in our
hospital the project of bringing me any and all articles citing the
medical necessity of wearing a bra at all post-partum, or nocturnally.
So far, no one has come up with anything.

I have to prepare a lecture to the senior ob/byn staff on this subject
so that they will stop telling women to wear bras 24 hours a day, and
certainly not tight bras.


 In the meantime I have found all of two articles citing the use of bras
in lactation and guess what for?  You guessed it: Lactation supression.
Bras are mentioned in gyn. textbooks for comfort only.

Here are the articles:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/htbin-post/Entrez/query?uid=9855585&form=6&db=m&Dopt=b

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/htbin-post/Entrez/query?uid=7004693&form=6&db=m&Dopt=b

Anyone find any more?  The head of L&D told me that the reason that the
docs tell the patients to wear bras is that when he first started
working as a new doc, the senior docs used to say that so the younger
ones said it also.  I asked him for references ( HE refuses to prescribe
Diflucan because of lack of substantiating references!), and he hasn't
produced any yet.

I am glad to hear that I am not the only one playing this game day after
day.  Today bras, tomorrow supplements........when is someone going to
do a study on what it is that makes LC's keep going back to the lion's
den?

BTW, I ordered a  bunch of little green books to give the docs as
presents.  Maybe that will help?

Have a good weekend.  From sunny and beautiful Israel where winter seems
to have skipped over us this year.

Esther Grunis, IBCLC
Lis Maternity Hospital
Tel Aviv, Israel
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