piercings

foxaírt

im not sure if this has been discussed yet ? its not a pressing topic but i am pondering 

has anyone or does any one plan to breastfeed and keep nipple piercings ? 

how annoying is it to remove sterilise and replace rings or bars multiple times a day ? or can it just be made part of the normal process remove and sterilise while feeding then just pop back in as part of the post routine when you would tend to nipple care anyway 

has have had nipple piercings effected your flow and impacted feeding at all - 

i dont think i could remove mine for more than a day max without them closing and i think it would hurt or stretch to replace them any time after about 3 hours out . 

one is like 11 years old the other is only maybe a year now 
I'm curious how feeding may impact on this 

just wondering if it is possible if one is prepared to take the extra care?

kwaldy

I had some before my previous pregnancy. Midway through my pregnancy, I lost a barbell and didn't realize it until I got home and so it ended up closing. I ended up taking the other one out shortly after that. I think I probably would have taken them out even if I hadn't lost one. I can't imagine that I would want to take them out and put them in for every feeding... because they eat ALL.THE.TIME. I will probably get them re-pierced after this LO is done nursing, though. 
It didn't affect milk supply/breastfeeding that I know of. 

kissthesky32

I don't have a nipple piercing, but, as said above, babies eat all the time. You'll see some moms say that they just walk around without a top on for a while at first because baby is pretty much always eating. Taking out a piercing every single time sounds really annoying. If you want to BF, I would let them close and redo when you are done having babies. 

TeacherMama7

Totally agree with everything @kissthesky32 said. Babies nurse so often and nursing at first doesn't always come easy... you won't want to add another complication to the mix.

foxaírt

Yeah I'm aware of it . And starting to think it'll be a lot of added stress . Which is why I wondered if anyone had success

BayCamp

My friend was determined to keep hers and when she was engorged at the beginning they became super painful to deal with. Like she was sobbing trying to take them out and milk kept going everywhere making them slippery and even harder to remove on top of the pain and with a hungry screaming baby. It was a huge mess so she ended up not putting them back in and just got repierced when she was done. 

Not a horror story, I promise. When she told me about it she was laughing but it was one of those stories like the poop explosions, not funny in the moment but funny afterwards because they were ridiculously a "parent battlefield" moment. 

Personally, I dealt with thrush a few times despite my best efforts at prevention. I could not imagine taking out jewelry and replacing multiple times a day. I'd just be open to the idea of repiercing later but do what you can to stick with it and avoid it. 

08-16-08jms

I don't have any experience on this topic, but would they have to be taken out if the jewelry was gold and sterile? Have you tried searching for breastfeeding jewelry? I have no idea if such a thing exists. 

smrome

In theory, I understand you can just leave them in. I was too paranoid to do that, that the ball would come off and baby would swallow. And yeah, baby feeds all the time and in the middle of the night. Too much for me to keep up with. I just left them out. The piercings never effected my flow or supply. After breastfeeding slows down, you can try putting them back in and dealing with that. I had one piercing close up and one stay open enough for me to get it back in. And I had had them for 3 years prior to taking them out. I ended up just repiercing when I was done.

foxaírt

08-16-08jms said:

I don't have any experience on this topic, but would they have to be taken out if the jewelry was gold and sterile? Have you tried searching for breastfeeding jewelry? I have no idea if such a thing exists. 

yes they are a choking hazard - even if they are super secure they are an additional hard foreign object which would impede on the sucking mechanism - since so much of the nipple goes so far into babies mouth , they would ABSOLUTELY need removing every time and they would need to be sterilised every time also as things like infection can occur anyway the piercing adds to this risk of introducing a foreign body to the nipple 

i dont think i would ever consider the idea of keeping the bars in while feeding - 

the issue with when you're done  is I'm only just starting - I'm 31 and this is our first and we would plan to have more - the done idea is unknown and could be another decade away , thats a long time to just give up on me - (selfish i know but I'm not one of those I'm going to exist solely to be a mum people so this bothers me ) my income is also image based and i feel like i would lack confidence giving up so much of my image especially since ill already need to adjust my perception of my body to go back to modelling -  i also don't like the prospect of re-pierceing after every child that seems silly - 

obviously ill just have to wait and see - but it doesn't look good - which makes me sad as i have already had to remove 3 hip piercings when i found out i was pregnant ,(no way they would survive the stretching- no way id get them redone )