Jean Cotterman, quoting Felicity Savage, wrote
> "You can sometimes see the long, stretched
> breast tissue for a moment when the baby stops sucking."
Yesss!
Some other author (I wish I remembered who) once described the breast as
being pulled into a long, flat, ribbon shape inside the baby's mouth. Years
ago when I read that, it rang a bell for me, because I HAVE seen a breast
changed into this long, flat ribbon shape---perhaps two or three times in my
entire nursing career (8 2/3 years). (I'm referring to my own career as a
nursing mother, of course.) This could happen after a long, sleepy nursing
session if the baby let go suddenly, and I saw a flat pink shape that looked
like a wide rubber band scoot out of the baby's mouth and spring back into
the button shape I was accustomed to seeing in the middle of my areola. (I
don't say "resume its *normal* shape" because whatever shape it assumed in
the baby's mouth was of course a normal metamorphosis for a human nipple.)
I only saw this with an experienced baby (I can't state exactly when it might
have happened, because the long, sleepy nursing part of the description
refers to the mother's mental state as well as the baby's), probably a
toddler. And I only saw it after a long nursing, so I assume the breast was
pretty well "wrung dry"---oooh, what an uncomfortable image, although I don't
mean it that way---let's say "stripped." So I never speculated too much
about whether the nipple-areolar complex assumed this long flat ribbon shape
with every nursing, or only after the sinuses were empty and the nipple
tissue was totally relaxed. And the fleeting glimpse I had of my anatomy,
the few times I saw it at all, did not allow me to determine whether I was
seeing a long flat ribbon made only of "nipple," or whether the base of it
was composed of "areola." Remember, I was half-asleep.
Anyway, having seen this long flat ribbon shape myself, ON myself, I've never
been troubled by the description Barbara quoted.
< found that the nipple extends to 2-3 times resting length>
Chris Mulford
Swarthmore PA USA
This IS a season for self-disclosure, isn't it!
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