Nursing Bra

Giving birth and having a baby is one of the most thrilling, exciting experiences of a woman’s entire life – but that doesn’t mean it’s a particularly practical experience as well. Firstly, there’s the huge amount of accessories seemingly required for a baby, meaning leaving the house is like planning a military operation. It’s also well known how exhausting a newborn can be, as a mother who has been through the intense physical experience of giving birth tries to deal with recovery and adjusting to life as a mother. However, there is something you can buy to ease the difficulties associated with a newborn child, and that is the nursing bra.

Women are constantly told that “breast is best”, and indeed it is, as hundreds of medical studies have shown. Yet once again the practicality issue raises its head; when you need to feed a baby numerous times a day, removing and then replacing a bra is nothing short of ridiculously time consuming as well as a physical exertion new mothers can do without. So in steps the nursing bra, allowing breastfeeding without actually removing a bra.

Unlike the traditional bra, the nursing bra is still a developing technology, despite having first been produced in the 1930s. At present there are several patents pending for new types of nursing bras that are seeking to explore ever more convenient ways of breastfeeding a child without needing to remove the bra. Current innovations available for removing a cup to free a breast for feeding include zips, clasps and standard buttons.

The most recent advances in nursing bra technology, however, deal with the fluctuation of size a nursing mother experiences in the first few months of nursing. After giving birth, breast size can increase and decrease rapidly and seemingly almost daily as the body shifts back into regular hormonal patterns and establishes a routine of producing milk. There are also more practical problems with size, in that breasts can fluctuate by an entire cup size depending on whether or not the mother has just fed a child or if she is full. This incredible change means that a nursing bra cannot only focus on the practicality of quick access to a breast, it must be able to change with a woman’s body, or the process of nursing would be ridiculously expensive as many different size bras would have to be purchased.

To tackle this problem, there are many adjustable nursing bras available to purchase, which continue to give support through a system of multi back straps and multi cup sizes, all of which are usable on the same basic bra frame. This is absolutely essential, as an ill-fitting bra can result in a compression of milk ducts in the breast, which can lead to the incredibly painful and difficult to treat infection of mastitis. It is also essential that during the feeding process, when the main cup of the bra is unzipped, the breast is still supported.

Knowing this, it’s easy to see why nursing bras are still constantly being updated and refreshed. After all, a new mother wants to concentrate on spending time and bonding with her baby, not worrying about the associated difficulties of breastfeeding. For this reason, nursing bras are an essential purchase.