Breast Reduction & Breast Feeding

[Dave]

I was considering getting a breast reduction down to nada...flat...zero. At the same time, I would like to have kids in the future and am curious about breast feeding. Does anyone have any insight?

[confuzzled1982]

I think your best resource for this would be your surgeon. If they only take the fat tissue, it would have no direct effect on the mamory glands. As far as I understand, the two main reasons female breasts are enlarged are 1. to attract males and 2. to provide some protection to the mamory glands.

[Doc]

It is possible, if they do the right proceedure -- take the fat and not the mammary tissue, do not sever and graft the nipple. No guarantees. I don't know, but I suspect that a severe 'down to nothing' reduction would make it more likely.

Breastfeeding isn't the world, or the measure of a good parent. Lots of people have trouble with it.

[Postmodern Macro]

It is possible, if they do the right proceedure -- take the fat and not the mammary tissue, do not sever and graft the nipple. No guarantees. I don't know, but I suspect that a severe 'down to nothing' reduction would make it more likely.

Breastfeeding isn't the world, or the measure of a good parent. Lots of people have trouble with it.

I never breastfed my kid, and I wasn't breastfed. I turned out healthy, and aside from a couple of sinus infections and teething pain, my kid's pretty damn healthy. (He's a year and a half.) Not that I didn't want to, I COULDN'T. I had school and had not TIME to breastfeed.

Also, milk-engorged breasts = PAIN.

[Eldon]

Well since men cand start lactating, you should be able to if you kept the glands.

[Dave]

All good answers so far. I kinda floated the idea out to my doctor today (regular appointment) and he laughed and asked why I would want to remove my breasts. He's a very new doctor to me (just met him today, my regular one has left) so I didn't know how to go about it so I just laughed it off as a hypothetical...that he didn't answer. He went into something about breast cancer and breast cancer genes...I think he thought I wanted to remove mine to reduce the risk of breast cancer.

[Ravin]

This website has a bunch of links and good information:

http://www.kellymom.com/bf/concerns/mom ... rgery.html

The gist of it is that you could probably have the fat tissue reduced and be able to give it a go, but going down to flat and then breastfeeding isn't going to be do-able.

I, too, would like to have mine removed, but until my son and any subsequent children are done with them, they're not going anywhere. Weighing the health impacts of not breastfeeding vs. the mental health of the parent dealing with trans issues potentially doing the breastfeeding is something that can only be done by that parent. There are real health impacts related to use of artificial milk which in our culture tend to be ignored or couched in minimalist terms (as the above poster did), and a million excuses for why people don't (I work and will be returning to school and went to school full time when my daughter was an infant and breastfed/pumped). If putting off surgery and/or not being able to bind would result in serious depression, that could well outweigh the risks of planning to use artificial milk.