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Breast Development

 

f a woman is generally small, will her breast size most likely be small also?

No. Breast size has nothing to do with a woman's height or body size, other than if she puts weight on or takes it off, the breasts MAY gain or lose fatty tissue.


Can eating fattening foods give you bigger breasts?

It is possible, but not predictable. The body may add inches to the hips instead. If she eats less, fat MIGHT come from the breasts, making them smaller than they were before.


When do girls finish puberty?

Somewhere between sixteen and twenty years old, though it is hard to tell when that actually happens. As far as breast development is concerned, you may want to look at "The Five Stages Of Breast Development", which is a more complete answer.


What is Hypertrophy?

This is a term for excessively developed breasts.


What is polymastia?

This is a term for more than a normal number of breasts ("poly" means "many" and "mastia" means "breasts").


Can a lady have more than two breasts?

Out of every 200 women, there will be one with three or more nipples. Some women are not even aware of it, since they do not develop enough to be noticed. They just look like a freckle or mole. They will be located in the "milk line" that goes from under the arm to the normal location of the nipple, down past the waist, and then in toward the genitalia. It ends on the upper, inner thigh. Sometimes the breast tissue under the supernumery nipple will actually develop, especially when a woman becomes pregnant. The known record number of breasts on a human female is ten.


What do steroids do to breast tissue?

Anabolic Steroids are artificial testosterone. They have many serious and devastating side effects, but are taken by men (and women) to enable rapid and excessive growth of the large skeletal muscles. Anabolic Steroids will cause gynecomastia (breast development) in men. Don't get excited, ladies - AS will cause women's breasts to shrink.


What is a "normal" breast size?

Normal is what you are. Normal is what I am. There is no "normal", because we are all different. No two noses look alike. No two breasts look alike. "Madison Avenue" has an image of what the "Advertising" or "Commercial" norm is, but very few women can ever be like them. We need to see more "real" people to determine just what "normal" can be.


Should I be concerned about hair that grows around the nipple?

We have hair all over our bodies, but some hair is so small (or light colored) that it is not that noticeable. There is usually less hair surrounding a nipple on a female than there is on a male (as well as anywhere else on the female body), probably due to the hormone differences in their bodies. The important thing to understand is that it is not only okay, it is NORMAL that many (most?) women will find the occasional hair in the areolar area surrounding the nipple. Many women remove it, but if you do, choose a safe way to remove it.


When do women's breasts stop growing? How can you tell when you are at the finished stage of breast development?

Breasts never actually stop growing. They are changing all the way through our lives. If you are referring to the "growth spurt" during puberty where they seem to appear from nowhere, that usually finishes up somewhere around the ages of 16 to 19 years old. Breasts are very dense at first, and are difficult to x-ray for a mammogram. They become less dense as we get older, allowing x-rays to be taken at about 35 to 40 years old. Density continues to wane as we age, causing the breasts that once stood proudly to become pendulous. Sorry, but wearing a bra will not prevent that. You may be able to make an educated guess about when you will reach the adult stage, if you can identify when your breasts have reached the fourth stage. You should be able to do that if you read "The Five Stages Of Breast Development".


How does the breast move as you grow older?

This may be either of two questions. Breasts will always "move", once they are developed to a larger size, IF they are allowed to. Breast movement is considered to be beneficial by people that understand the lymphatic system. Take a look at the offerings that we have under Breast Massage to learn more about that. The second possible answer would be that the attachment point of the lower side of the breast to the chest wall actually changes during a woman's life. It slowly re-positions itself about half the distance between two ribs. This is not the same as a pendulous breast, and would probably not be prevented by the use of a bra, since bra wearers will experience it too.


When your breasts get hit or suffer from impact, does it stunt their growth?

When our breasts have not begun to develop, we (males AND females) have what is referred to as a breast "bud". It is simply the beginning tissue that will become lobules, ducts, ampullae, etc. in the adult breast. If one's breast bud is damaged seriously, before development starts, there will most likely be some retardation of that breast's development. After development has begun and is well on its way, minor impacts will usually not cause any developmental problems.