Nursing bras – why comfort beats sexy every time

Emily Vest is mum to two young (and very gorgeous) boys and is 37 weeks pregnant with her third. She’s also a prolific blogger. Her blog Pants With Names is one of the top 100 UK parent blogs. As a wearer of Emma-Jane bras, we invited her to share her thoughts with us on what she looks for in a nursing bra and to give us real mum insight into the world of pregnancy and nursing.....

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Being heavily pregnant is many things: scary, exciting, beautiful, but one thing it is not is comfortable. The same could be said for those early days of motherhood, when everything is sore, the nipples are cracked, stitches are places you’d rather not have them and sleep is a long lost memory.

Now approaching the end of my third pregnancy, I’d forgotten just how nervy and exciting these uncomfortable days are. I know well enough from experience that everything is a phase, and that I will get back to normal again soon enough, but for right now, I just want to be comfortable.  At 36 weeks I can start looking for a new nursing bra and experience has taught me many things when it comes to making this sort of purchase.

The most important is this: late pregnancy and early motherhood ain’t sexy. How can anyone feel sexy when you have a small person hammering on your bladder, midwives talking of pelvic bones splitting and getting out of the bath requires some form of crane? The idea of sexy becomes even more outlandish after you’ve checked your dignity in at the hospital reception and vast numbers of people have prodded places usually reserved for your most loved one, and I haven’t even started to discuss the joys of the stitches and piles.

So when it comes to buying bras, sexy is so far down the list of desirable features that to even contemplate the idea of a sexy nursing bra sends me into spasms of uncontrollable giggles, probably capable of sending me into labour. I mean, could there be anything less sexy than a racy red and black number sodden in breast milk mocking your ability to think about anything apart from sleep?

I’m not suggesting that the bras can’t be pretty, after all they’ll be on display rather more than your other bras, but sexy? I could do without that particular stick to beat myself up with.

So, as I approach my third baby’s due date what would I suggest looking for in a nursing bra? Comfort, comfort, comfort (which includes fitting well and proper support; you aren’t going to find yourself nice and relaxed if the bra doesn’t fit properly). Then if you are as broke as me, good value for money (but remember comfort comes first at all times). And finally, a little mental note that nursing doesn’t go on forever and by then I might even feel like a little naughtiness so the sexy stuff will be back before I know it.

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Many thanks to Emily for contributing this guest post. And best of luck for the birth!