[heartandhands]

With my first DD i had sooooooooooo many nursing difficulties. definite supply issues on my left breast. i'd love to be able to nurse from both and just have a "normal" nursing relationship. thing is, both last pregnancy and this one, i notice a big difference in the amt of dark blue veins on each of my breasts. the left one (my low supply breast) has fewer visible veins and they are smaller. the right one (my better supply breast) has more visible veins and they are thicker/bigger. so, do you think my supply issue is partially to do with the vascularization differences? reason i ask is that i am currently obsessively inspecting my boobs in the mirror every night to see if the left one is looking more veiny than last pregnancy and it's not and i'm worried that i'll be attached to a pump and popping domperidone again for months and months and months.
does anyone know antyhing about a possible correlation here?
thanks in advance

 

[maguvet]

the veins probably seem bigger and wider in the more full breast, the one that previously did more work, but i think it's the chicken and the egg thing. i think the veins are bigger on the 'good' breast because it has had a better supply, not that it has a better supply b/c the veins are bigger. but remember, you are only seeing the most superficial vascularization, there are many other vessels more than 'skin deep' and so i don't think you can definitively draw any conclusions just from the veins you see.

i am a veterinarian, so i don't really know that much about human breasts. but, in dairy cows and goats, the milk veins get big and bulgy AFTER the udder starts producing a lot of milk, and then stay that way forever. it's not like you can look for the big veins when they are young, and then predict which ones will be high producers. so, i would guess your big veins are because you previously produced lots of milk in that right breast. keep your hopes up for the potential of the left one! positive thinking, and maybe a little massage to stimulate production?

 

[Megan73]

I have the same issue - low supply that I realized is caused by one "bad" breast. If both my breasts produced as much as my left I'd have NO supply problem but "righty" produces about a third as much. I wonder if it's possible to have IGT in just one breast?
I don't see any difference in the number of veins but I have heard that every pregnancy and nursing experiences builds breast tissue to I hope my right breast will do better next time.