A bit of a boob

Sometimes, you just feel like a right tit.

I realised the other day that my boobs are not what they once were. It was one of those realisations where you never didn’t know it, but the concept has suddenly sunk in and you now know that nothing will ever be the same again. It was breastfeeding that changed them, of course, and probably age a wee bit… but mainly breastfeeding. The boob skin has gone soft, and saggy, they really don’t sit in the same place, and they’re definitely a lot heavier than they were. That last part is possibly due to the extremely cake-based diet I embraced while the baby was small that I have yet to remedy, but still.

My biggest issue is that I used to be quite proud of my boobs (not that I actually remember what they looked like now, but I’m certain I was) even though I had absolutely nothing to do with their creation, existence or function. And, now that I have used them and they have fulfilled their life’s purpose and proven themselves to be excessively functional and practical, I’m embarrassed of them. I lock them up in an expensive, uncomfortable, complicated contraption because society says I should (but also because they don’t sit where they used to and I might trip over them if I didn’t) and wear sack-based clothing to try and make it look like they might not take up as much space as they actually do.

So let’s take a look at a boob, shall we? Let’s marvel at how wonderfully functional and practical and useful they can be, in an attempt to rethink any negative feelings toward them. Maybe you feel similar to me, maybe you’re just getting ready to use yours, maybe you never plan to, or they’re giving you problems, causing you grief, pain, illness, or maybe you don’t have any. However you feel about boobs, it always helps me to arm myself with knowledge; join me in taking a closer look.

So, your boobs project out from the pectoralis muscle, actually using your muscle as an anchor for the boob’s dense irregular connective tissue - which is the stuff that sits under all your important boob structures. There’s also a lot of adipose tissue (fat) and a fair few strands of connective tissue called fibrocollagenous septa or the suspensory ligaments of Cooper if you want to be boring (named after the surgeon who described them, Astley Cooper. I prefer septa). The septa weaken over time or size changes (like expanding to produce milk or because cake/beer/bread and butter is amazing) and Cooper coined a “droop” to explain breast sagging (ptosis. It’s called ptosis. Why is that seriously fabulous term not more well used?!) and related it to the septa. Of course, since he described them. However, the saggy boob phenomena that is ptosis has been shown since to be largely caused by genetic factors and significant changes in size that come from things like pregnancy and weight changes. Anyway, now we’ve all basked in the glory of ptosis, the rest of your boob is mammary gland.

Mammary glands are modified sweat (sudoriferous) glands (ew) which produce milk as part of the lactation process. The rest of the process is secreting and ejecting the milk. It’s not particularly glamorous, but if you are feeding or have fed a small baby, the idea that you have grown and kept a human being alive using just your body is quite a powerful feeling, one I must remember while I try to forget that my boobs are grazing my knees. The mammary gland is made up of 15-20 lobes, which themselves contain lobules, which in turn contain “grapelike” clusters of the milk-secreting glands called alveoli nestled in connective tissue. Little cells in the connective tissue contract which help squeeze the milk out of the alveoli and into a series of tubey things, ducts, and sinuses which carry and can store the milk slightly temporarily until it is expressed from the lactiferous duct out the nipple and into the baby. Or breast pump, if you have a difficult baby like I did, or have to work/do things/stash milk for future doing of things. All hail the breast pump, bane of my existence.

So there’s your boob, and here’s to breast ptosis everywhere, may we learn to celebrate it as the triumph of life it should be. The Bit of a Boob print is up on the website as always, and also on the wall in the Roseleaf until the end of March, where it looks really quite cool even if I do say so myself.