Large Breasts Shaped For Feeding
September 21st, 2006
According to a recent study, the size, roundness, and up-tilt of a woman’s breast evolved to prevent babies from smothering during breast-feeding. Many now believe that this distinct shape wasn’t designed by evolution to arouse men and might dispel common myths about why the shape of a woman’s breast is changing over the centuries.
Because breasts don’t develop until puberty, many evolutionary biologists have long suggested that large breasts helped early human females attract a mate and keep him interested in her welfare. Those with larger breasts were more successful, the theory goes, and therefore produced more offspring.
The function of the mammary glands in female breasts is to nurture the young by producing milk, which is secreted by the nipples during lactation. However, no female mammal has breasts comparable in size to that of a human when they are not lactating. Humans are the only primate that have permanently swollen breasts. This suggests that the external shape of the breasts is connected to factors other than lactation alone.
Scientists at University College in London, England, cite examples of monkeys with their protruding jaws that can suckle their flat-chested mothers without suffocating. These scientists believe humans have flatter faces because of the evolution of a larger brain, which necessitated a change in skull shape, as well as some changes in mouth structure. Humans, with our flatter faces, might have caused evolutionary pressure on breast shape, making them rounder and fuller to allow human infants to breathe while feeding.
If sexual selection was the reason for the larger human breast, as many scientists once thought, why don’t all cultures find large breasts erotic? It is interesting to note that if you look at cultures in Africa, the breast is for the baby, not for the male, and it is the buttocks that have become the erotic focal area for men.
The same is true in other cultures. The Chinese make a fetish of the foot and experiment with foot binding while the Japanese concentrated on the nape of the neck. A Japanese Geisha will often allow a few stripes of flesh to be shown when painting their bodies for this very reason.
Breasts are sexual because people make them sexual. I agree with you Sara that breasts are designed to feed our children. I breastfed my daughter and knew all the benefits of doing so. There were only a few times when I would bottle feed my daughter and always had trouble.
My doctor told me that using an artificial nipple to feed a young infant is likely to lead to nipple confusion. The sucking technique which baby learns from the rubber nipple does not work at the breast, and baby quickly becomes frustrated. We tried dozens of artificial nipples and only found one solution that worked.
Adiri is a company that makes a bottle shaped like a soft breast. It responds to the baby’s touch allowing her to temporarily increase flow by kneading the dome of the bottle.
Even babies know that breasts are for feeding!
http://www.breastfeeding.asn.au/bfinfo/large.html
My breasts grew and grew when I had my first daughter. I always used a pillow on my lap to help support my large breasts. People always think that large breasts mean more milk but breasts are made up of fatty tissue, glandular tissue and connective tissue. The size of your breasts reflects how much fatty tissue they have. It is the glandular tissue in your breasts that creates the milk.
Another big breast myth perhaps?
That site above offers some great tips for girls like us who have large breasts and are feeding our newborns.
This is the guide that helped me. Keep up the hard work on this website Sara!
Large breasts: Positioning pointers.
I was a mother with large breasts that was always self-conscious about my size. It can be difficult to find maternity bras that fit well but the internet helped out in that regard. I spent a fortune in shipping costs returning bra’s that didn’t fit, but at least I had a choice. My local stores had nothing for women as large as I was.
My vote goes for feeding as well. If they were designed to attract men they would be all sparkly and have lots of different colors like a Peacocks feathers.
:)
The truth is no one knows why women have breasts. I believe breasts are an evolutionary afterthought. I say this because they come in all shapes and sizes. No part of the human body (male or female) comes in so many shapes and sizes.
Why do we females have breasts?
Well, actually, if you care to take the monkey, you will notice they also have breasts. Now, you said that one reason would be because of our flat faces? Well, we haven’t stopped having flat faces, so, the breast has had no need to change back to being flat. Monkeys are pretty much the same (skeletal wise), and they have breasts. It’s an evolutionary thing. The fact that guys think of breasts as arousing is neither here nor there.