How your breasts change during your pregnancy...

October has been coloured pink for Breast Cancer Awareness. Tree-trunks wrapped in pink cloth, walkathons and marathons, and ‘Pink Tea Parties’ to raise funds for breast cancer awareness. Staff (men included) are wearing pink to work. I’m sporting a pink ribbon. Magazines are carrying heart-warming stories about breast cancer survivors. Education and awareness is key. But besides encouraging women to give themselves regular breast examinations and to go for mammograms, getting to the heart of where cancer is coming from, is perhaps more important. 

Breasts and periods:

The link between breasts and periods is by way of a hormone called oestrogen. Oestrogen is an essential ingredient of our femininity. 

•  Oestrogen boosts our mood and makes us feel sexy

•  It keeps skin plump and moist (delaying wrinkles) 

•  Retains natural hair colour and buoyancy (noticed how hair sometimes becomes curly after puberty?) and shine!

•  Oestrogen gives us energy, it helps us get things done! 

During the first half of every menstrual cycle, oestrogen is made in the ovary by the ova (eggs) in preparation for ovulation (the release of the egg) and consequent fertilisation. 

Ovulation happens about mid-cycle (a cycle is calculated from the first day of one period to the first day of the next period). Besides preparing the womb and cervix (mouth of the womb) for fertilisation, oestrogen prepares certain ‘target cells’ in the breast for breastfeeding – namely the breast ducts.

As helpful as oestrogen is, it has some drawbacks. Because this hormone stimulates cells to multiply it is called carcinogenic – in other words, ‘cancer-causing’. Luckily the oestrogen-ovulation-peak only lasts about 5 days of the menstrual cycle, and oestrogen effects are balanced by another hormone, progesterone, that’s produced after ovulation. This ‘balancing act’ only occurs with natural menstrual cycles (i.e. not ‘pill’ cycles). 

During pregnancy, oestrogen and progesterone are made by the placenta (not the ovaries) and their task is to maintain the pregnancy and prepare the woman’s body for the birth, and breastfeeding. By the sixth month, breast ducts (channels) and alveoli (these look like bunches of grapes where the milk is made) are fully developed, and this is where colostrum comes from. 

This also means that by this stage of your pregnancy, your breasts have nearly reached the final stages of development (this is completed with breastfeeding – ideally for a year). After weaning, when your menstrual cycles return to normal, breast tissue will no longer be ‘oestrogen sensitive’ because they’re fully matured – thus sparing them the carcinogenic effects of oestrogen.

In this way, pregnancy and breastfeeding helps to protect a women’s breasts from cancer.

Please note that there are many types of breast cancer – pregnancy and breastfeeding is not a guarantee that you will not get breast cancer. It is only one of the many protective mechanisms. 

Your unborn baby, week 1 - 36

Let’s recap what’s happened since you had your last period:

Week 1: Conception, journey through fallopian tube – day 6, implantation into the womb begins

Week 2: Day 10 implantation completed, 3 layers of cells develop including placental cells

Week 3: Period missed – Embryo with neural tube (brain and spinal cord) heart and thyroid cells

Week 4: Heart begins to beat! Size 4 mm. Shape embryonic with arm buds 

Week 5: Primitive eyes and mouth, hand plates and leg buds. Size doubled to 8 mm

Week 6: Nose and mouth cavities with upper lip, foot plates; arms bend at elbows with finger rays

Week 7: Eyelids beginning, genitals unisex, beginning to look human, size 18 mm

Week 8: Fingers distinct, genital testicles or ovaries distinguishable, size 30 mm

Week 9: Now called foetus, looks like a baby, genitals becoming boy or girl, size 50 mm

Week 10: Face looks human, genitals developing, size 61 mm

Week 11: Toes beginning to take shape weighs 10 – 15 grams 

Week 12: The gelatinous body is becoming firmer with cartilage

Week 13: Jerky movement seen on the ultrasound scan. Testicles producing testosterone, ovaries contain millions of immature eggs

Week 17: Mother feels kicks. Eyes closed, body covered with lanugo – fine hair, size 18 cms wt. 90 – 120 grams

Week 20: Pregnancy shows, baby size 18 – 20 cms. Sucking and swallowing reflexes, baby can taste and hear

Week 23: Baby has 44% chance of survival if born prematurely

Week 24: Called a baby weighs 500 grams approx. 30 cms. Baby has 63% chance of survival

Week 26: Eyes open and blink. Rapid brain development. Approx. 32cm long and weighs 800 – 925 grams. Baby has 81% chance of survival if born prematurely.

Week 36: Baby in the head-down ‘birthing position’. Baby can weigh up to 2 kgs. Approx. 34cm long. Labour can begin from 38 – 42 weeks gestation.

Porridge Brain Syndrome

Don’t worry – PBS is normal and happens to the best of us. This part of pregnancy numbs a woman’s brains in preparation for what’s going to happen over the next 21 years – disturbed sleep, financial crises, sick children, school hang-ups (all over again) and everything else that comes with parenthood. And don’t expect sympathy from your parents. They’re delighted that you’re pregnant because soon they’ll be getting their own back. After all, grand parenting is the reward for not killing their own in the first place!

When you have PBS, important data from your brain gets fed to the placenta – which of course comes away after the birth – so it’s lost forever! A bit like a computer crash. Worse, there’s no trash bin to recover information from. And of course, the more children you have, the more data you lose.

Women with PBS also become self-absorbed and self-centred. They’re not interested in the news, what’s happening in their neighbourhood or the stock market. She only thinks about herself and her next ante-natal appointment, baby magazines, pregnancy web sites, baby-showers and shopping-lists for baby goodies.

Apart from acknowledging that this is happening, and learning to deal with it, there’s no treatment for PBS. It’s an important mothering skill that teaches you the benefits of ‘quiet time’ – alone. Doing this while you are pregnant helps you to connect emotionally and spiritually with your baby. Withdrawing yourself from society after the birth allows you to spend quiet, one-on-one bonding time with your baby. Mothers never quite cut the umbilical cord. We grow and ‘become’ with our children, learning more about ourselves while we learn about them. It’s a privilege we should never take for granted.

Porridge brain and all, these ARE the magical moments of motherhood! Cherish them … and learn not to fret the small stuff.