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To Nurse Or Not To Nurse

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By AMY ELLINOR, Tribune correspondent

Published: December 7, 2007

I found that when I was pregnant, most of the women I knew would eventually ask me if I was going to nurse.

For most of them, it was a time in their lives they remembered fondly, and they reminisced about it as if it were yesterday.

But then there were the others. The ones who wanted to share the horror stories and watch me squirm.

Sure, they simply may have wanted to be certain I didn't repeat the same mistakes. But their tales of dwindling milk supplies, babies who wouldn't latch on, milk allergies, pain and bleeding were enough to make anyone skittish. Before I reached the end of my first trimester, I had read all of the chapters in my baby books, grabbed every pamphlet I saw and signed up for the hospital's nursing class.

By the time I gave birth, I felt I was ready to nurse — even if my milk came in late, or the baby had trouble latching on, or I developed mastitis in both breasts while fending off polar bears in a blizzard somewhere.

Although none of the women I talked to thought anything of describing their cracked nipples in detail, not one of them discussed how their breasts looked after nursing. They didn't mention it in my books or my hospital class, either. But after I had my baby and started hanging out with other stay-at-home moms, I was surprised at how often the subject of sagging would come up.

Yep, some women mourn the loss of their pre-pregnancy perkiness the way some middle-aged men mourn their high school sports days. It will never be the same.

It wasn't until I met a woman who told me she decided not to nurse because she didn't want her breasts to change that I really thought about the choice in that way. When I asked her if she knew about the benefits of breastfeeding, her argument was simple: She wasn't breastfed and she turned out OK.

I couldn't disagree with that.

It's a debate that has divided scientists for years. Some have argued that breastfeeding increases intelligence while others have said the intelligence of the baby is a result of social class and the intelligence level of the parents.

New research in England and New Zealand that tested the effects of formula and breast milk on 3,000 babies has finally ended the debate. They found that breast milk contains important fats that foster brain cell growth, and that 90 percent of babies carry a gene required to digest those fats. The result is an average gain of a seven IQ points.

Women willing to forego nursing to save their shape may want to pass on pregnancy altogether. Brian Rinker, who provided implants and lifts to women who claimed to have sagging breasts from nursing, decided to study the effects of nursing on the breasts.

What he found was that regardless of whether or not a woman breastfed her child, the results would typically be the same. Apparently, it's the pregnancy that causes the sagging. During pregnancy, the breasts swell, causing the skin tissue to stretch and lose some elasticity. After the baby is born, the breasts return to normal size but have lost some elasticity. The effect is worse in women who smoke.

Whether or not my kids have the breast milk gene, I'll never know, but I'm still glad I nursed. I have some wonderful memories and one or two stories to scare the heck out of people.

Besides, I figure my breasts are going to get old anyway — just like the rest of me.

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