Mother’s Day. Having a child after breast cancer, how the body changes

Becoming a mother after recovering from breast cancer is now increasingly possible. This is the case of Luciana, who received her diagnosis at just 26 years old. “At the Gemelli Polyclinic she underwent a left mastectomy and an immediate reconstruction with prosthesis, during which we also intervened with a small prosthesis on the other breast, the healthy one, for a more symmetrical aesthetic result. Luciana is now 39 years old and she is the mother of a little girl born three years ago. She had not only the opportunity to realize her dream of motherhood, but also to breastfeed her daughter from the right breast, the one that underwent surgery to make it more similar to the reconstructed one”, says Marzia. Salgarello, reconstructive plastic surgeon at the Agostino Gemelli Irccs University Polyclinic Foundation and president of Beautiful After Breast Cancer (BABC) Italia Onlus

Given greater survival in women with breast cancer, it is important to deal with life after the disease, also because the diagnosis can also involve very young patients. Who do not have to give up motherhood today.

But how does a woman’s body change during pregnancy after reconstruction with a breast prosthesis? “Unlike other women, the patient who has had a mastectomy and reconstruction with a breast prosthesis – explains Salgarello – will not see an increase in the volume of the ‘new’ breast, since this is made up entirely of the prosthesis. In fact, even if the external appearance is apparently normal because the areola and nipple are present, as happens in nipple-sparing mastectomy, the mammary gland has been removed and therefore cannot grow under the stimulus of pregnancy hormones”.

Or it could be a woman who had the reconstruction done with her own tissues and not with the prosthesis, a type of operation that gives more stable and natural results over time, but which requires “drawing” tissue, mainly from the abdomen. “This type of reconstruction allows the reconstructed breast to change over time, following the physiological changes of the body: it gains weight if the patient gains weight, ages and sags like the original breast does. In this case, during pregnancy the breast reconstructed with the belly changes, that is, it can increase in volume due to the patient gaining weight, but she certainly cannot breastfeed, since the breast is made up of abdominal adipose tissue and not glandular tissue”, underlines Liliana Barone Adesi, medical director of the Surgery Unit Plastic, Agostino Gemelli University Polyclinic Foundation Irccs and vice-president Babc Italia Onlus.

“It should also be highlighted that after reconstruction with abdominal tissue it is advisable to wait for the stabilization of the scars and tissues for about a couple of years before thinking about becoming pregnant”, adds Salgarello.