Breast health - how to take good care of your breasts

Have you ever thought about what your relationship with your breasts is like? Aside from the usual beauty trends that have surrounded us as women since childhood, most women have an image of the “perfect breasts” in their minds that they compare their own breasts to. Some are more satisfied with their breasts, others find them too big, too small or too asymmetrical. What is often completely overlooked is the topic of breast health: are your breasts healthy, how can you take good care of them, what are the possibilities of preventive health care and much more.

In my surveys on breast health, I’ve noticed that many women have a very mixed relationship with their breasts. For this reason, I would like to dedicate this article to the ‘closest friends of our heart’.

To address our own breast health, we as women may want to take a step back from thinking that the breast is only sexualized. Because that prevents us from establishing a genuine and loving connection with this important body part. Leaving size, symmetry and appearance aside for a moment, we can begin to look at the breast again with a feminine eye, namely as what they actually are: a wonderful, functional and magical body part that can do much more than just be an object of desire. Because the breast is not only there for the pleasure of our partners, but can also increase our own pleasure and literally feed children. In order to make friends with your own breasts and discover their qualities for yourself, it is helpful to know a little more about them.

The female breast is made up of fatty, lymphatic and glandular tissue. How much fatty tissue makes up the breast depends on the menstrual cycle phase, age and genes. Glands represent another part of the breast, these react to hormonal changes and, if you are breastfeeding, are responsible for milk production. The lymphatic tissue ensures that bacteria and harmful substances are removed. With the onset of puberty and the release of sex hormones, the breasts begin to grow. What many do not know, however, is that although a woman’s breasts develop, their full development does not occur until pregnancy, when the breast “learns” to produce milk. Women who do not have children never actually finish developing their breasts. An interesting fact of nature.

Our breasts, like the uterus, have receptors for estrogen and respond accordingly to the release of our hormones during the menstrual cycle. The growth impulse that estrogen has on the breast is rebalanced by progesterone in the second half of the cycle. If you take the pill for years, take hormone therapy or add xenoestrogens (chemical substances that act like estrogens) to your body, then the growth of the breast is promoted too much, which can put the breast tissue in danger.

The best way to support your own breast health is to pay attention to what you eat and put on your skin every day, and to make sure that your breasts get enough exercise so that the lymphatic tissue can do its job and the body is able to naturally detox. For step one, it is recommended to look at all creams and oils, as well as shower gels and other products in your bathroom. Clear out your bathroom and keep only what is really healthy for your body. To do this, you can also use apps that show you which ingredients are contained in our care products by scanning the barcode and whether or not they potentially disrupt your hormone balance. The same applies to the intake of drugs that could have an effect on the hormonal system and therefore also the breast. In the second step, I recommend taking off your bra more often, doing gentle sports without a bra sometimes, or my favorite, regularly giving yourself a breast massage. Natural movement of your breasts allows the lymph to do its job, removing toxins from the tissue. A breast massage gives you the opportunity to make friends with your breasts, at the same time you get to know their texture in the different phases of the cycle, and it helps with health screening because abnormalities can be detected more quickly. Breast massage also promotes blood circulation and lymph flow, as there are many lymph nodes in and around the breast and especially in the armpit.

Massage and palpation of the breasts are recommended directly after menstruation because at that point the hormones are still low and the breast is still subject to little hormonal influence. However, to get to know yourself better, it is helpful to massage your breasts once around ovulation and before your period to notice differences in consistency, size, and shape. 

Supporting breast health as mentioned above is also an important step if you are prone to sensitive breasts during the second half of the cycle. Many women experience increased water retention in the breasts during this very “PMS” phase, which is why they feel heavier and often more tender. In most cases, the cause is an excess of estrogen compared to the amount of progesterone produced. This can be counteracted by avoiding exposure to additional estrogens, such as xenoestrogens, reducing coffee consumption and dairy products, increasing omega-3 fatty acids, and avoiding stress. Relief can also be obtained from drinking teas starting at ovulation, using herbs such as lady’s mantle, nettle, St. John’s wort and raspberry leaves, or using Vitex agnus castus. The good news is that breast pain, technically called “mastodynia,” is rarely medically dangerous, not a risk factor for breast cancer, and often “just” cyclephase-related.

These days, when we talk about or relate to our breasts, it’s often in the context of buying a bra or during a checkup with a gynecologist. Many women feel their breasts are only there for others and not themselves. If you google the subject of breasts, too many articles appear on the subject of breast cancer and hardly any on the subject of self-love and breast health. It would help us as a society if women would not associate breast cancer or the fear of it with their breasts in the first place, but rather a competence to know their own body, to feel good and to have built up a relationship with their own breasts, so that one immediately recognizes when something is wrong. Because it should now be clear that breasts are truly a miracle of nature.