Successful breastfeeding after breast reduction surgery or mastopexy: A retrospective comparative study

Breastfeeding has been widely encouraged by health care systems for many years. Breast reduction or mastopexy, are very frequent procedures often performed on young women. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of breast surgery on breastfeeding by comparing the success rate of breastfeeding in operated women versus unoperated women. Secondary objectives are to evaluate the breastfeeding success rate according to the surgical technique or the weight resected. A retrospective comparative study was conducted. Women of childbearing age who underwent breast reduction surgery or mastopexy at Henri-Mondor Hospital were contacted to answer a questionnaire about their pregnancies. Two hundred nine patients answered and two groups of patients were constituted, a preoperative group of 104 women who had a pregnancy before surgery and a postoperative group formed by 61 women who had a pregnancy after surgery. Breastfeeding success rate was 82% in the preoperative group versus 41% in the postoperative group. A statistically significant difference was found on the success rate of breastfeeding, as well as the rate of exclusive breastfeeding, with significantly lower rates in the postoperative group. In contrast, there was no significant difference between the different pedicles used, neither according to the weight of the resected gland. The cause of failure in the postoperative group was in most cases insufficient milk. Breast reduction surgery or mastopexy seems to have negative impact on the ability of operated women to breastfeed. This impact is multifactorial so these results should be interpreted with caution and further studies are needed to improve the management of these patients.