Chthonic nipple: why the female breast is considered a source of evil and depravity on the Internet (and not only)

Victoria Nesterova: This article is for mothers who are faced with breast fullness in the days when colostrum is replaced by milk (usually 3-4 days after birth, but maybe a little earlier or later). Also, the described techniques can be useful for breast swelling in the first or second day (even at the stage of colostrum).

So. The milk has arrived. The breasts filled up and became not just heavy, but very full and painful. Even the temperature sometimes rises for a day. Sometimes it's really scary. And if it’s also difficult for a child to grab it, what to do and what not to do? What do you need to know first?

Causes

The following diseases can provoke hardening of breast tissue in a nursing mother:

• Stagnant processes in the gland (lactostasis);
• Mastopathy;
• Development of a purulent-inflammatory process in the mammary gland (mastitis).

The most harmless of the listed conditions is lactostasis, but ignoring congestion leads to the development of mastopathy and mastitis.

Mastopathy refers to a benign growth of the glandular tissue of the mammary glands, which develops as a result of hormonal disorders in the female body. This disease is accompanied by the following clinical signs:

• Formation of single or multiple cysts;
• Overgrowth of breast tissue.

The main reasons for the formation of mastopathy are:

• Increase or decrease in the concentration of thyroid hormones. This type of disorder occurs due to diseases of this organ, pathologies of the liver, ovaries and endocrine system. This is very often observed among lactating women with diabetes;
• Imbalance of sex hormones in the body.

If we are talking about the development of lactostasis, then congestion in the mammary gland in a nursing woman develops due to the following reasons:

1. Impact of emotional overload and stress factors. Daily stress is an integral part of the life of a young mother. This is due to a change in the rhythm of life and the emergence of responsibility for the health and life of a newborn baby;
2. The influence of temperature and weather changes. The body of a young mother is very vulnerable to changes in atmospheric pressure. During the off-season, nursing women often experience lactostasis;
3. Failure to adhere to the technique of attaching the baby to the breast and feeding in the same position. When parts of the mammary gland are under daily pressure from the baby's chin, this leads to uneven emptying and milk stagnation;
4. Using a restrictive bra. If a woman’s underwear puts pressure on her mammary glands every day, then congestion in the breasts can be regarded as a predictable situation. How to choose the right nursing underwear, read the article at the link;
5. Increased viscosity of breast milk. If a young mother makes mistakes in her daily diet, this can affect the quantitative and qualitative composition of breast milk. Nuts and animal fats help increase the viscosity of this product. In addition, low fluid intake is a potential factor in the development of the problem;
6. Regular pumping of milk. The process of expressing breast milk is a necessary measure. If a woman has introduced this into daily practice, then her mammary glands begin to produce increased amounts of this product. The result of this process is often lactostasis.

Less common causes of congestion in the mammary glands include:

• Use of tight clothing made of synthetic materials;
• Injury to the mammary glands;
• Putting the baby to the breast not on demand, but according to an hourly schedule;
• Exposure to low or high temperatures on the breast area.

Factors such as prolonged lactostasis, as well as the entry of infectious pathogens into the mammary gland through external damage to the skin of the nipple and peripapillary area (abrasions and cracks) can lead to the formation of a purulent-inflammatory focus in the mammary gland.

Arrival of milk

The arrival of transitional milk most often occurs 3-4 days after birth.

and may be accompanied by swelling of the mammary gland, soreness and increased body temperature. In this case, the so-called chest temperature increases: when measuring the temperature at three points, for example, under the armpit, in the mouth and in the groin, the highest temperature will be under the armpit, the difference with other points may be a degree or more.

The arrival of mature milk usually occurs 10-18 days after birth and can also be accompanied by swelling of the mammary gland, soreness, and increased body temperature. All this is not mastitis, but if done incorrectly it can lead to uninfected mastitis.

“In this situation, it is necessary to continue to feed the child on demand, and the concept “on demand” includes requirements from both sides: both mother and child.

Sometimes a baby cannot latch onto the breast well and suck out milk because the areola becomes hard. In this case, before feeding, it is necessary to slightly pump the breast so that the baby can successfully latch onto it and begin sucking.

Often a mother has a desire to completely express her breasts to alleviate her condition. However, when milk comes in and the composition of the milk changes, expressing must be carried out according to certain rules. If a mother has painful sensations, “stone breasts,” then she can express her breasts until she feels relief no earlier than a day after the milk starts coming in. You have to wait about a day because the substance that curtails excess lactation appears in the full breast after about 24 hours.

“If you express your breasts before this time, the same amount of milk will come, and hyperlactation may “start” with all the troubles that accompany it, the main one of which is the need for regular pumping.

It should be noted that when mother and child stay together in the same room, as well as at home, and following feeding rules, there are no major problems with milk supply. If mother and child are kept separately and the child is only brought in for feeding, the mother quite often experiences engorgement with severe swelling, redness of the entire mammary gland, and difficulty in the outflow of milk. If there are abrasions or cracks on the nipples, such engorgement can result in infected mastitis.

“To cope with engorgement, it is necessary to establish pumping for 2-3 days during the daytime (from 9.00 to 21.00), as well as frequent and prolonged breastfeeding by the child. You should not pump at night, so as not to provoke an additional flow of milk.

To facilitate the outflow of milk, a light massage, warming with a hot towel, or using a high-quality breast pump before feeding or pumping is possible. This is the very case when feeding the child at the request of the mother is extremely important.

Symptoms

You can recognize the presence of congestion, which has led to thickening of the breast tissue, by the following characteristic symptoms:

• Increase in body temperature within 37.5 degrees. If a young mother experiences an increase in temperature to 38 degrees or higher, then we are talking about the development of an infectious-inflammatory lesion of the glandular tissue;
• Pain in the breast area that is pressing or aching in nature;
• Density of breast tissue in a specific area or throughout.

Breast massage

Self-massage to strengthen the breasts is also done daily and takes at least a quarter of an hour. The massage is performed in three techniques:

1. Stroking. It is done with a hand lubricated with Vaseline or any fat. Movements are slow and careful. In direction - from the sides to the center, but without touching the tip of the nipple.
2. Kneading. The chest is lifted with the hand and kneaded with the fingers. These movements can be compared to squeezing a sponge or kneading dough.
3. Effleurage. It is done with jerky blows that do not cause pain. The fingers should run quickly, as if across the keys, and the edges of the palms should be patted over a fairly large surface of the chest, as if penetrating inside, through the muscle layer.

Self-massage for breast strengthening

Twice a week you should massage your breasts with a wooden roller, directing movements from the armpits and intermammary socket to the nipple, across the entire breast.

Treatment

In order for the treatment of this condition to be accompanied by a therapeutic effect, a nursing woman should familiarize herself with the list of basic prohibitions:

• If the cause of this condition is lactostasis, then the woman does not need to give up breastfeeding the child. The reason for stopping breastfeeding is an inflammatory process in the mammary gland, which is accompanied by the release of pus;
• It is strictly forbidden to use various heating and hot compresses on the breast area for therapeutic purposes;
• It is not recommended to limit your drinking regime.

Drug treatment of lactostasis includes the use of local remedies such as Traumeel cream, Malavit solution and ointment based on herbal components Arnica. These medicinal drugs have a pronounced anti-inflammatory, analgesic and anti-edematous effect.

Products such as compresses and rubbing based on ethyl alcohol and camphor are strictly prohibited. Since the list of medicinal medications allowed during breastfeeding is prohibited, a woman can use traditional medicine methods.

The following tips will help you cope with discomfort, swelling and pain:

1. Cabbage leaf compress. For medicinal purposes, it is necessary to use fresh cabbage leaves, pre-chilled in the refrigerator and mashed until the juice appears. Such compresses are applied to the area of ​​compaction and covered with polyethylene and woolen cloth. The duration of retention of the cabbage compress is 25-30 minutes;
2. Honey-flour compress. In order to prepare the medicinal mixture, you need to take 1 tbsp. l. wheat flour and 100 g of natural bee honey. Having mixed these ingredients, you need to form a small application from them, which is placed on the painful area of ​​the mammary gland. The top of such a compress is covered with polyethylene and linen cloth. The compress can be applied before bedtime.

If the cause of lumps is mastopathy, then the primary task of a nursing woman is to normalize the breastfeeding regimen. The selection of conservative therapy is carried out by a medical specialist.

Nipple question

Facebook's policy on female nipples consists of a thousand and one prohibitions. Now on Facebook and Instagram it is allowed to post photos of breastfeeding, mastectomy scars and works of art (but not photography, even if their author is Mario Sorrenti himself). This rule also applies to digitally created content (drawings), as long as it was not published for “educational” or “humorous” purposes.

The company also makes concessions for content published with a social mission. “Our policies regarding nudity have become more sophisticated and flexible over time. We understand that such images may be published for various purposes, including to express protest or raise awareness of an issue, and we allow the publication of such content.”

But what about just bare female breasts? Not calling for a revolution, not shown for educational purposes? A strict no. For a long time I tried to find at least one Mormon among the top managers of Facebook, I searched all over Reddit for at least a shred of information about Mark Zuckerberg’s childhood traumas in the hope of finding at least something that justifies this irrational fear of women’s nipples. Nothing. In 2015, the platform itself explained its categorical attitude by the fact that the App Store allows “piquant” content only if the application has an age limit of 17+ (Instagram has a rating of 12+, that is, a new qualification would significantly narrow the audience of the application) - about The company's CEO, Kevin Systrom, told Dazed Media at an event.

Adam Mosseri, who replaced him in 2021, justified the ban differently: according to Mosseri, moderation prohibits female nipples in order to avoid problems with the law due to the publication of child pornography and revenge porn - neural networks cannot determine the age of the girl in the photograph, nor can they understand whether she consented to the publication of the photo. But this looks like a far-fetched measure - child pornography does not become legal if strategic places are covered with stickers, and taking revenge on your ex will not be prevented by the requirement to blur your nipples.

So, women's nipples have no place on Instagram or Facebook. Where are they welcome? In fact, in general, nowhere - every year there are fewer and fewer platforms on the Internet where a woman can proudly show her breasts to the world.

The last corner of freedom and haven for adult content creators was Tumblr. But in December 2021, the site’s management announced that moderators would now block any content rated 18+. Not only materials depicting sexual acts and genitals were banned, but also female nipples. The ban put an end to the era of sex-positive blogs and erotic photo blogs for which the social network was famous.

Twitter has set a positive example so far: publications marked as “sensitive media files” are not deleted by moderators (by the way, Instagram also has this option). The social network does not generally set out to combat pornography as such, but monitors compliance with laws and promptly responds to user complaints. However, in order to retain the right to have 18+ content, the company had to change the age restrictions from 4+ to 17+.

Seal prevention

In order to prevent stagnant processes in the mammary gland, which are accompanied by thickening of the breast tissue, it is important for a nursing woman to follow these rules:

• Normalization of the diet of a nursing woman. To avoid stagnation, it is necessary to exclude from the diet those foods that affect the viscosity of breast milk;
• During periods of breastfeeding, you should wear underwear designed for breastfeeding women. Such clothing items are made taking into account the characteristics of the young mother’s body. In addition, this underwear consists of natural fabrics;
• Change your breastfeeding position from time to time. If a woman is used to feeding her baby in a standard sitting position, then she should pay attention to the “side” and “lying” positions.

Expressing breast milk should only be done after first consulting with your healthcare professional.
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The danger of female breasts: a little history

Out of fear of the law, social networks may begin not only to block content that is read by neural networks as “pornographic,” but also to block its authors without the right to pardon.

In any case, this is how censorship still works on American television - remember the scandal with Janet Jackson's bare breasts. In 2004, during a performance at the Super Bowl (broadcast live by CBS), Justin Timberlake touched the singer's costume with his hand so that the audience could see Miss Jackson's bare right breast for a full second (the nipple remained under the reliable protection of the pad). The Super Bowl is an event that brings millions of American families to their television screens (and the whole family watches it), so the negative public reaction was not long in coming. Janet was accused of deliberate provocation, violation of moral principles and other sins that can only be attributed to a woman whose breasts were seen by television viewers.

Representatives of the National Football League announced that they would never again trust MTV to produce the Super Bowl, and the US Federal Communications Commission imposed a fine of $550 thousand on CBS. The reason is numerous complaints from citizens demanding protection from the “arbitrariness of television people” who dared to violate all rules of decency and show a program with sexual content during children’s time (from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.). Jackson refused to make a public apology, which is why the channel's CEO Les Moonves canceled her performance at the Grammys and also bought the airtime of some radio stations so that they would not play the singer's songs.

This incident also led to changes in US legislation - fines for indecent content of television programs were increased from $27,500 to $500,000. Congressmen explained this need to protect the children's psyche: American citizens are very concerned about what their children can see on TV.

It is important to note that the US Constitution (Free Speech Amendment) guarantees full protection for the content of pay TV channels - when you purchase a cable TV or Netflix subscription, you are making the choice to receive this content at your own discretion. But what about social networks, where, on the one hand, you can model your feed yourself, and on the other, you constantly see random content?

If, after the presidential elections in the United States, Republican conservatives remain in power, who like to hide behind family values ​​and care for children at every opportunity, we (not only the Americans themselves, but also users of products of American IT companies) risk returning to 2004, and Rihanna, Kim Kardashian and many others will have to apologize for their Instagram photos.

How the state saves people from breastfeeding

Breast censorship also ignores the other side of the problem - women can want to be sexualized and have the right to profit from their sexuality.

In her column for Lenny Letters, model and heroine of the wet dreams of half the world's population, Emily Ratajkowski, recalls the ridiculous attempts of adults to control her sexuality in her youth. “Girls like you need to stay in the shadows so that nothing happens to them,” they repeated to the 13-year-old girl, who was delighted with her first miniskirt, a D-cup bra and admiring glances in her direction. Instead of giving her pepper spray or taking her to self-defense classes, her family condemned her to protect her from the evil world, but this hardly helps. So why should we blame Ratajkowski for using a resource other than a university degree to build her career, and worry about the fact that she makes her millions with her body, and not with financial strategies and marketing presentations?

Instagram @emrata

Emily Ratajkowski

More seriously, the breast ban perfectly illustrates that there is no universal way to deal with such complex phenomena as pornography and sex work. The latter includes not only prostitution, webcams and filming in pornographic films. Erotic models and girls who build an audience with half-naked pictures on Instagram are also part of this community.

“I am signing this bill in your honor,” Donald Trump announced in April 2018 to a group of sex trafficking victims at the signing ceremony for the FOSTA (Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act) Internet censorship bill at the White House. “You have experienced something that no person on earth should have to experience, and we will do everything in our power to ensure that traffickers are brought to swift and firm justice.”

It would seem like a good initiative, but not everything is so simple. The bill has come under fire from both sex workers and human rights activists - it conflates human trafficking with voluntary sex work and puts all sex workers in the position of victims, whether they consider themselves as such or not. In addition, originally intended to combat the advertising of sex services on online message boards, this bill has led to increased censorship of erotic content on social networks. Not long after its signing, Tumblr, for example, changed its policy regarding nudity. These changes, in turn, only pushed women more into trading sex content: it became easier for them to sell their pictures on the paid portal Only Fans than to share them for free.

British sex workers and authors of the book Revolting Prostitues Juno Mack and Molly Smith talk about cases where clients boycotted escort agencies, forcing them to lower their prices: prostitution is legal in the UK, but the use of sex services is punishable by law. The fewer clients there are, the more power they have, which puts prostitutes in exploitative relationships with clients. A similar situation is now happening on online platforms.

Surgical methods of correction

Operations during which only the misdirection of the nipples are corrected are extremely rare. They are mainly carried out when the cause of the disproportion is traumatic changes in the mammary glands and their pronounced unaesthetic asymmetry. Much more often, such corrections become part of an intervention called mastopexy. These are aesthetic surgeries, the purpose of which is to give the breasts a more attractive shape.

Typically, such a correction includes lifting of soft tissues, as well as correction of the area and location of the areolas and nipples on the surface of the gland. Indications for mastopexy are:

• abnormal breast shape after pregnancy and breastfeeding;
• significant and fairly rapid loss of body weight with sagging glands;
• age-related changes, which are manifested by prolapse of soft tissues.

The operation can have a different volume and be performed using different techniques: periariolar, vertical or T-shaped mastopexy. The specific type of intervention is chosen by a clinic specialist based on the severity of nipple displacement and the individual characteristics of a particular patient. The duration of mastopexy can be from 1.5 to 3 hours - it depends on what specific problems the plastic surgeon needs to solve. This operation is always performed under general anesthesia.

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What foods reduce breast size?

A significant bust volume can cause some discomfort. An increase in the load on the spine is often accompanied by back pain. Women have difficulty choosing clothes and underwear.

Since breasts are composed primarily of fatty tissue, you should eat mostly low-calorie foods. To reduce bust size, it is recommended to include in your diet:

• greenery;
• cabbage;
• radish;
• black radish;
• green peas (fresh);
• cucumbers;
• asparagus;
• lean fish and meat;
• cottage cheese, kefir and whey.

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Important! Green tea helps reduce body fat.