Implants no bar to breastfeeding: study
Pamela Fayerman
Vancouver Sun
Wednesday, February 19, 2003
"Women who enlarge their breasts with implants do not have less success breastfeeding their babies than women without implants, the preliminary findings of a University of B.C. study suggest.

Dr. Paul Oxley, in an attempt to ''clear up some of the confusion and to learn about the true effect of breastfeeding after augmentation surgery,'' began enrolling women with implants last year...

His study co-authors were plastic surgeons Patricia Clugston and Richard Warren. The division of plastic surgery at UBC sponsored the study.

Although they have yet to complete a full analysis, Oxley is confident the data show implants, of all types and insertion techniques, don't interfere with breastfeeding attempts.

So far, Oxley said, the data on 60 women with implants show that 72 per cent were able to breastfeed their babies, without supplemental formula, for at least two months.

While there wasn't a case control comparison group of women without implants, Oxley said previous studies in the medical literature of women who have not had their breasts enlarged show a similar percentage breastfeeds successfully and exclusively for the first few months.

Only six per cent of the women in the current study who tried to breastfeed could not. ''We assume that they wouldn't have been able to breastfeed anyway, regardless of the implants,'' Oxley said. Women in the study were 18 to 32 years of age when they got their implants and within the same age range when they had children...."