Hi, I am wondering if anyone here with breastfeeding experience knows if nipple piercings effect breastfeeding, if the rings are taken out and allowed to close. LLL says it doesn't but I can't find any personal experiences and my friend says she knows people who have had trouble... I thought Maggie may have some knowledge of this. Thanks.
as far as I know, it depends on how the piercing is done, and how it's healed. Bad scarification can lead to problems.
I can speak from partial experience.... I had my nipples peirced when i was 14 and left them peirced till I was 18... I am 6 months pregnant and plan to breastfeed all of the reaserch i have done says that it should be fine... So far I have had a little leakage and my nipples have been prepareing themselves like they should... from what i understand as long as your nipples do not have a lot of scar tissue and they function normally otherwise (getting hard at apporiate times, correct senstivity, ect) you should be fine... if your considering getting them peirced and someday want to breastfeed i would reconsider becasue there is always that chance that something could go wrong... and that would suck... if i knew i wanted to have a kid when i had my done i would have never done it becasue feeding my child naturally means more to me then a peice of jewlery ever would....
i had my nipples pierced ofr about four years and when i got pregnant i took them out and let them heal and the only problem that i have had (after two years ) is the inside of my piercing is healed but the outside is not so milk comes out of the two holes and thats perfectly fine it doesnt bother me or aiden. i think you and your baby will be fine as loong as your holes are healed up and do not have infection. good luck love FF
Thanks you guys. I am not currently pregnant, nor plan to be too soon. I am thinking of piercing my nipples but breastfeeding is very important to me when the time comes. I have inverted nipples and I feel piercing them would help with that (that's just me personally, I prefer the look of pierced nipples to flat ones). I just want to make sure first, as I'm with you on the health of my babies overrides any jewelry. As of now I am still thinking of doing it, since it may actually help with the inverted nipples. I'll wait and see what else is said though.
I had a nipple pierced...I took it out before I got pregnant. One day when I was breastfeeding, and I expressed some milk it came out of the two healed holes on either side! So the piercing was no problem for me.
I agree with what the other womyn have said. There should be no problems (except for some leakage at the hole sites) unless you had it done incorrectly or have a lot of scar tissue. Most people have their nipples done by professional piercers, and they know how to do it to avoid scarring ect. Just need to take out the jewelry when you get pregnant. The jewelry will most likely be pushed out by the increased tissue growth during pregnancy and breastfeeding, and I can't advise trying to keep the holes open with fishing line, as not only can it imbed, but I know a mama who did this, and forgot about it, and the baby swallowed the fishing line. BTW, the baby was fine, she pooped out the line, but the mama let the holes alone after that. You may need to repierce after you have ALL your kids (no use of doing it between kids, as you will may have more scarring with repeated piercings) as most mamas do have a lot of tissue healing, despite the fact that you may shoot some milk out of the hole sites. It won't hurt the baby. Good luck.
I had a fried who had both nipples piercedfor 10 years before getting preganant. She removed them when she was 3 months pregnant and went on to nurse her son for 1.5 years with no trouble. Alothough she said she thought the flow was less on one side. Which was the sidethat had slow healing after the piercing. Your ability to bestfeed depends on how many of the ducts that feed into the tip of your nipple are damaged by piercing. That said I read an article in midwifery today about a woman who exclusively nursed twins with one breast! So anything is possible.
Nearly all womyn have a discrepency about the "amount" of milk each breast make. I have seen mamas who have a 60% on one side and 40% on the other, 70% and 30% 90% and 10% and womyn who nurse exclusively on one breast alone. The human breast was made to make milk, in most cases it will, all things going well. I have seen tens of thousands of breasts in my career. I have never seen "symetrical" breasts in anyone other than womyn with implants or reductions, and even in these womyn, symetricality is rare, they are usually lumpy, nipples at odd angles ect. The larger breast doesn't always make more milk, but it may. Most womyn (but not all womyn) have the larger, and usually more productive side on the breast opposite their dominant hand. So, right handed womyn usually have larger left breasts and usuallly their left breast makes a little more milk. But, this is not written in stone. Some left handed mamas have left breast dominance, but these mothers are often ambidextrious. The female human body is an amazing, individual, productive entity.
A little bit of bragging rights here. I (along with an other LC/LLL leader) were the ones to put forth information on nipple piercing for LLL. About 8 years ago, I started getting more questions, and seeing more womyn with nipple piercings. (Well, I saw the piercings before that.) As a doula, my superviser asked me to look into it, there was virtually no information, so all we had was anecdotal information, which in this case, was quite helpful. When I first tendered the info to LLL, they didn't think there would be "enough women who have pierced nipples for us to need to address it." I strongly disagreed. The info was eventually put on the site ect. Same for tatooing and the effects of "tatoo induced HIV or Hepatitis." I've been terribly misquoted about the survey I did, years ago, on Hep and other blood borne diseases and breastfeeding. But the main point, that all things being equal, womyn with no other high risk for blood borne illnesses appear to be no more effected by Hep and HIV than non-tattoed womyn, is, at least being repeated. I would love to redo the survey on tatooing, piercing and blood borne illnesss (as it is my beleif that inking and piercing are not risks, as long as the womyn has not engaged in other high risk behaviors.) Maybe, I'll redo it soon. The info would, again, have to be self reporting, only, as I don't have the funding for actual testing. But, it's something. OT, but still applicable. Brag over.
