If you?ve had a breast augmentation surgery, you may be wondering if it will affect your ability to breastfeed your baby. The good news is that most women can still breastfeed just fine, as the surgery usually doesn?t involve the ducts or the areas of your breast involved in milk production. And the silicone in today’s breast implants is unlikely to leach into the milk.
But the risk of an augmentation affecting breastfeeding depends on where the incision is made in the breast and what kind of surgery you had. In a typical breast augmentation surgery, an incision is made in what?s called the inframammary fold, which is the fold under your breast, and an implant is placed behind the pectoral muscle, which lies below the breast tissue. In this case, ?The implantation is actually away from the breast, so all of the ducts that were there to begin with are still intact, and still connected to the nipple,? explains John Semple, head of plastic surgery at Women?s College Hospital in Toronto. Although this is the most common method of breast augmentation, there are times the incision is done in the armpit or around the areola, usually for cosmetic reasons (the scar is less visible). An incision around the areola may affect sensation to the nipple and interfere with your milk supply. Some ducts may be severed as well, but you won?t know the full extent of this until you try to breastfeed. And in some surgeries, the implant is placed over the pectoral muscle, which, in rare case...