Breast Feeding after Breast Implants

Avoiding the periareolar incision is the most important thing you can do to preserve your ability to breast feed down the road. Lactation is hormonally controlled so if your ducts are intact (as they would be by avoiding the periareolar approach), they should respond to the hormones released during your pregnancy. Understand there are many women out there without implants that cannot breast feed so breast feeding is not guaranteed following augmentation but augmentation should not impact your natural ability to breast feed in the future.

I agree with Dr. Wong. With the more recent highly cohesive implants ( gummy bear implants), an inframammary incision is recommended thereby avoiding disruption of the ducts that can occur with the periareolar incision. There is no interference with the ductal system or breast tissue with either a submuscular or subglandular placement of the implant, although placement of a large subglandular implant can cause compression of the breast tissue.

You should be able to breast feed babies when implants are inserted through an inframammary incision into a partial submuscular pocket. This should not affect you milk production or delivery of milk to your nipples.

Thank you for sharing your excellent question. Assuming you were going to be able to breastfeed before implants (about 10% of women are unable to for a number of reasons), you should still be able to do so after implants. Hope this helps.

If you have a submuscular augmentation with a moderate size implant, the lateral 4th intercostal nerve is not violated, and your breast tissue is not overly compressed by the implant, you will be able to nurse, if you could nurse now- how do you know? I had 2 children, nursed them, had an augmentation, and nursed the third even better. If this is at all a concern to you - not nursing the 3rd- then wait til you are done with pregnancies.