“To be pregnant is to be vitally alive, thoroughly woman, and distressingly inhabited. Soul and spirit are stretched – along with body – making pregnancy a time of transition, growth, and profound beginnings.” —Anne Christian Buchanan
National Women’s Health Week begins each year on Mother’s Day to encourage women to make their health a priority. Prioritizing your health – especially your breasts – has never been more important for new mothers.
A few months ago, I wrote about Alchemical Breast Care about keeping your breasts healthy through Breast Cancer Awareness. We all know keeping ourselves healthy is worth investing our time and attention. Checking our breasts regularly for lumps and bumps to ensure you’re healthy and everything’s fine should be second nature.
As a new mom, taking care of your breasts before you have your baby is as important as caring for your baby. The art of breast massage has been practiced for thousands of years and is an essential aspect of self-care, wellness, and healing.
Most people think of breasts when they think of sexuality and breastfeeding. A woman’s breasts are an instantly recognizable symbol of femininity and a vital part of how she relates to herself — sensually and sexually.
The myth of the “perfect breasts“ could be the most damaging stereotype to the female psyche because it means the rejection of the feminine in her most beautiful, natural, unique, and quintessential form.
I must confess my personal bias; I was a breastfeeding mother of three babies. I learned about Ayurvedic breast massage when I was first pregnant. Breast massage provided me with a beautiful transition into a new relationship and connection with my femininity and my changing body as I prepared my breasts for nursing my baby.
Even as I disclose my choice to breastfeed, innumerable women choose not to. Caring for your breasts during your childbearing years (and beyond) is an embodiment practice and should be a daily ritual for your health and wellbeing.
Pregnancy Breasts
Did you know that the process of lactation starts at the beginning of pregnancy itself?
In the same way your womb undergoes a miraculous transformation to gestate a baby, your breasts are also undergoing a remarkable conversion in preparation for your baby’s arrival.
From the first trimester of pregnancy until delivery, the breasts of the pregnant woman are worthy of regular attention and care. Bringing awareness to your breasts and caring for them as much as you care about your growing baby is a beautiful act of self-love.
It is possible to avoid future breast complications and prepare the expectant mother to breastfeed throughout her pregnancy. After all, pregnancy breasts are gearing up for their most significant, most important role ever–feeding your baby.
The complex neurochemical changes in a woman’s reproductive system affect the growth of her breasts. Before pregnancy, the breast is predominantly adipose tissue without extensive glandular or ductal development. Breast size and shape vary between women and amongst breasts of the same chest. Women’s breasts change over time due to gravity and weight gain (and loss), but the main shapeshifter is pregnancy.
When you conceive, breast development really takes off. The complex internal structures needed to feed a baby only start forming when you’re pregnant. Your breasts begin to transform into milk-producing organs from the end of the first month of pregnancy.
Although every woman experience breast changes differently during pregnancy, in the months preceding birth, your milk ducts increase in number and complexity and begin branching into an increasingly intricate feeding system. Simultaneously, milk-producing cells called lactocytes start developing within your breasts.
The anatomy of your breasts is made of glands, fat, and fibrous tissue. Many small blood vessels, nerve cells, milk glands, and lymph vessels build a complex system inside the breasts. You have little branches of bud-like glands in the breast; each is divided into fifteen to twenty sections, called lobes. The lobes consist of many smaller lobules that end in dozens of tiny glands. These little buds grow out and form ducts, and tiny sacs called alveoli. Mammary alveoli are the site of milk production and storage in the mammary gland.
When pregnancy hormones rise, extra blood volume causes the tissue to swell. An increase in overall breast volume amounts to approximately 3/4 lb. per breast. The fluid gain causes your breasts to become heavy. How your skin reacts to the extra weight of your breasts is determined by the collagen and elastin in your skin.
With the increased amount of blood flowing to your breasts doubling, many pregnant women may see the veins through the skin of their breasts.
Pregnancy and breastfeeding have their set of associated breast tissue needs. Some women have sore breasts during pregnancy right up until birth, but it subsides after the first trimester for most.
Your breast’s firmness comes solely from the firmness of your skin. However, your skin may stretch and lose elasticity because of rapid breast growth, which can lead to stretch marks if not properly cared for as pregnancy advances. Helping the breast tissue stay supple and the skin moisturized can help reduce stretch marks and eliminate dryness and itching.
If proper care is not taken, these changes may cause discomfort or significantly alter the shape of your breasts after pregnancy.
Prenatal Breast Massage
The art of self-massage, the priceless feminine treasure right at your fingertips can be a delightful way to support your changing breasts during pregnancy and rewire your relationship with your breasts and your sensuality. Besides caring for your breasts, practicing self-love through caring touch is an important way to stay aware of any changes in your breast tissue.
The lovely aspect of touching your breasts and watching them change is that you are engaged already as a mother. Adding breast massage to your everyday skincare routine will help your breasts retain their elasticity through pregnancy and beyond.
Breast heaviness, tenderness, and soreness are typical for all mothers-to-be. To protect your breasts from developing stretch marks, begin massaging your breasts with Fleur Sundari Breast Oil.
Sundari Breast Oil contains a nourishing formula of essential oils and pomegranate seed oil diluted in jojoba and calendula oils. The highly emollient and antioxidant-rich properties soothe sensitive skin and soften the breast tissue.
The sensual blend of organic Frankincense, Bergamot, Geranium, Rose, and Jasmine essential oils not only nourish the skin, inhaling the aroma, promotes deep relaxation, uplifts the mood, balances the emotions, and dispels nervous tension.
If you have concerns about using Sundari Breast Oil, please ask your midwife, lactation consultant, or doctor, depending on where you are in your mothering journey. After the first trimester, this formula will help your breasts to stay healthy throughout your pregnancy.
Alternatively, you may use organic coconut oil, shea butter, rosehip oil, or jojoba oil in the first trimester to massage your breasts.
Breast Massage Health Benefits for New Mothers
- Relieves tension from swelling breasts
- Supports lymph flow and lymphatic drainage
- Improves blood flow and circulation
- Reduces toxins stored in the fatty tissues
- Boosts the immune system
- Provides relief from swelling
- Reduces stretch marks
- Retains skin and tissue elasticity
- Stimulates new cell production
- Balance deep-seated emotions stored in the heart chakra
- Relieves stress and anxiety
- Maintains the softness, suppleness, and radiance of breast skin
- Moisturizes the skin tissue
- Helps to unblock the ducts involved in lactation
- Awakens and reclaims a sensual relationship with your body
- Create a deep well of nourishment in your body just for yourself.
Breast massage also addresses the energy points in the chest region that often get blocked due to irregular movement of breath, stress, anxiety, frustration, grief, or any other form of emotional repression. To genuinely love and know the value of your feminine essence through your breasts, taking a few minutes each day brings a delightful sensation of well-being that translates into a radiance that glows!
Self-massage Technique
Post-bath or shower is a beautiful time to do breast massage. Breast massage is gentle. I encourage you to use a light hand using your fingertips with the intention of loving your breasts.
- Download my Infographic: For the Love or Your Breasts to guide your strokes (on the Sundari Oil Page)
- Heat up your hands by rubbing them together. Infuse them with loving energy
- Then cup your breasts and breathe into them for a minute, until you feel them pulsing and becoming more alive
- Smile at your breasts
- If your breasts are heavy, support your breast with one of your hands
- End with placing your hands over your heart.
In the 8th and 9th months, spend extra time on the nipples to prepare for nursing. If your nipples are flat or inverted, please talk with your healthcare professional for additional advice.
Opening the Heart
Breast massage helps open the heart and nourishes the energy in your womb. With your loving energy and attention focused on touching your breasts, your heart will feel full and revitalized, giving balance to your naturally nurturing nature. The combination of oxytocin release from breast stimulation and the surge of dopamine help create an association with pleasurable feelings, building a bond in the mother’s brain.
This act of self-love is innately soothing and healing, encouraging the body to emit hormones such as prolactin, oxytocin, and estrogen you need for birth, prepare for breastfeeding, encourage let-down and expression of breast milk, and facilitate recovery after childbirth.
Breast Care After Birth
Lactating women can reap the maximum benefits from breast massage. A recent study shows that mothers who received two half-hour breast massage sessions every day during the first week after giving birth experienced lesser pain while breastfeeding, enhancing their babies’ suckling action. Another study revealed that breast massage improves the milk’s quality too.
Studies show that breastfeeding mothers who massaged their breasts regularly during the first year after giving birth had higher casein concentration and gross energy in their milk. Massage also helps empty the milk ducts and improve the flow of milk.
Lastly, self-massage can also help treat medical conditions such as plugging, engorgement, or infection of the milk ducts.
Breast Massage is Self-Nurturing
A woman’s breasts are a source of nourishing and healing energy. Tending to your breasts with love is a simple daily ritual that will help you get in touch with the nurturing power of love and care. By touching your breasts you come into your heart, allowing yourself to open, soften, empower and release all your beauty of being a woman and mother.
Since mothering is about giving, breast massage also gives a woman the gift of receiving. It’s about slowing down, being receptive and present. To fully love your changing body, and your breasts, finding the balance between love and compassion for your children and those around you, the heart blossoms with genuine compassion for all beings — including yourself. Breast massage is one of the ways to awaken the Sacred Feminine within you.
May your breasts be healthy.
All my aromatic love,
Vidya
