Breast feeding after aesthetic mammary operations and cardiac operations through horizontal submammary skin incision

In most aesthetic mammary operations, a certain amount of tissue remains connected with the areola complex. When performing horizontal submammary skin incision for median sternotomy, no mammary tissue is removed. Therefore, lactation should not be impaired after these operative procedures. We examined 107 patients after aesthetic mammary operation and 27 patients after horizontal submammary skin incision and asked for breast feeding attitudes. Only two of 22 patients with a delivery after operation could not breast feed their infants because of agalactia. In four patients, insufficient support might have been the main reason for primary ablactation. In 12 patients, we found reduced areola sensibility; however, asensibility was not observed. We did not find any correlation between areola sensibility and attitude of breast feeding. No patient reported severe complications because of breast feeding. From the current data, we can conclude that breast feeding is possible after aesthetic mammary operation or after a horizontal submammary skin incision for cardiac operation. Patients should be instructed before the mammary operation and encouraged during pregnancy to breast feed their infants. Scars in the region of the breast should not be a reason for primary ablactation.