Large Breasts Breastfeeding

Having large breasts and or nipples can cause some breast feeding issues and frustration. Most moms might experience bleeding, blistering and mastitis, but this is more common in big breasted women. People sometimes think that moms with bigger breasts have it easy breastfeeding, but that is not true.

Here are some breastfeeding tips and tricks for those fuller breasted moms…

Tips for breast feeding with large breasts or nipples

- Make sure you are positioned and attached properly. When baby isn’t latched on correctly mom will suffer from engorgement, sore nipples, and if not treated mastitis. Make sure baby has a large portion of the areola in his mouth.

- The football hold position, as shown in the picture on your right, has also been used successfully by moms with bigger breasts. Baby is held under your arm.

- Get a lactation consultant to help you with the first few latches.

- A rolled towel underneath the boob can support it and keep it up when mom is sitting while breastfeeding.

- If baby struggles with latching, milk can be pumped in the first few weeks while baby is learning to latch onto the breast. Remember that pumping does not stimulate the breast as well as normal breastfeeding does…so normal breastfeeding should continue. Also, make sure you use a good hospital grade, electric pump for best results.

- Support your breast with your hand by forming a C hold. With the palm of your hand under your breast and your thumb on top. Make sure that your fingers are not touching your areola.

- When using a pump, make sure that the flanges fit properly. Most pumps are not sold with a larger flange. Medela makes a PersonalFit flange kit that comes with two special size flanges for larger breasts.

Does a woman nursing with large breasts produce more milk?

Not necessarily, irrespective of breast size what really counts for breast production is the amount of mammary glands present. A larger breasted women will have a larger storage capacity, which means that she would be able to feed baby more milk at one time, but this does not mean that she produces more milk. Therefore, moms with smaller breasts would need to nurse more often as baby empties the breast quicker.

If you do have a problem with oversupply you can read more on how to deal with this here.

Problems that occur as a result of breastfeeding with large breasts or breastfeeding with large nipples

- Moms with large breasts might have flat nipples caused through the weight of the breast… read more on breastfeeding with flat or inverted nipples

- Moms might feel extra self conscious when trying to breastfeed in public areas… read more on breastfeeding in public

With perseverance and practice there is no reason why a fuller breasted mom can't breastfeed and enjoy it too. Just hang in there…it gets easier as baby gets older and stronger.

Other pages in on "breastfeeding problems" in connection with large breasts breastfeeding problems

- Breastfeeding preemies

- Breastfeeding with flat or inverted nipples

- First time breastfeeding moms

- How does breastfeeding work?

- Pumping exclusively

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