Maternity Bras - when to buy, what to get & how to fit

You're pregnant! Congratulations. In no time at all you'll have a lovely bump, but long before that appears, you might start to notice changes to your breasts. First they'll feel tender, similar to how they feel when you're pre-menstrual. This tenderness will last for the first trimester of pregnancy.

At around six to eight weeks, your nipples appear larger and the veins in your breasts appear more prominent. This is because the volume of blood circulating in the body increases throughout the pregnancy. Over time your breasts will get larger, heavier and in need of better support. That's where maternity bras come in.

It is important that you take care of your breasts during pregnancy. As your breasts have only ligaments and no muscles, they could be stretched if they are not properly supported.  A well designed maternity bra is the best way to support your breasts comfortably and preserve your shape.


 

When to buy?
Most expectant mothers experience growing breasts well before a growing tummy and as soon as your pre-pregnancy bra begins to feel uncomfortable that is the time to buy your first maternity bra – roughly month 4 but possibly a lot earlier than that.

Your breasts will continue to change and grow and you may need to adjust your bra or change bra size throughout your pregnancy. Expect your breasts to weigh an extra 750 grams more and be 5cm bigger!

Avoid regular underwire bras as the wires can cause the milk ducts to become blocked, as your milk comes in, and are more uncomfortable during pregnancy.

What to look for?

Remember these four key things when choosing your maternity bras:

Support :  You will need wider straps, sides and underbust band, with firm elastic straps to eliminate 'bounce' and give you the extra support you need.

Coverage:  More fabric over breast area. This will provide increased comfort as your breasts become more sensitive.

Adjustability: A minimum of 4 rows of back eyes will allow your bra to grow with you.

Comfort : They should have a high cotton content or other microfibre breathable fabric as your breasts will tend to perspire more.

Get the correct fit

Use our size chart  to work out your size or visit one of our retailers for a bra fitting. Important things to remember:

-        When fitting a maternity bra, ensure you have room to grow by fastening the bra on the tightest hook and eye setting. As your rib cage expands, you can adjust it to give yourself extra room.

-        Make sure the straps are wide enough to support you without digging in. They shouldn’t be too stretchy.

-        Ensure the centre seam lies flat against your breast bone and isn’t riding up too high at the back

-        Make sure that the cups fit snugly and smoothly covering most of the breast with no overflow at the top

Our maternity bra style 311 (pictured) is loved by mums as it ticks all the boxes above. See it here or go to our of our retailers to get one. They retail for around £13.95 - so great value for money too.

What to wear while breastfeeding this Autumn

Summer is sadly drawing to a close. We're now entering that strange in-betweeny season where it's not quite hot or cold. Wearing just a breastfeeding vest on top isn't going to be enough to keep you warm, not unless you layer it with a cardi.

Which is why we have two great breastfeeding tops with three quarter length sleeves, giving your arms more coverage on chillier days.

Styles 841 and 842 are feminine, tummy skimming nursing tops that look great on, while making nursing easy. Made from superior extra soft cotton/elastane, the tops have ruched sides to flatter that post baby belly, and a front that easily lifts open with one hand to give discreet access for breastfeeding. The tops look great with jeans, trousers or skirts.

Style 841 is available in black and white.

Style 842 has a contrasting insert - available in chocolate/turquoise and black/white. 

They're available from a number of our stockists (you can find a full list here). If you're one of our retailers and stock these tops, let our readers know where to find you in the comments section below!

How Dads Can Help

When two become three – life for new dads will never be the same again!  As a dad you might feel that there isn’t much you can do to help your partner with breastfeeding. But a dad or partner’s role can be vital and make all the difference.

Women are much more likely to breastfeed for longer when they have their partner’s support. This leads to a greater sense of achievement for mum, and health benefits for both mum and baby. It can be a bonding experience for the whole family.

Practical ways you can help

Get the kettle on.  When mum’s feeding she needs to drink, so make sure she has a glass of water and a cup of tea for when she’s finished.  (Passing her the remote control is always a good idea too whether she’s feeding or not as it happens.)

Arrange paternity leave. Mum’s had nine months to get used to the new arrival but for many dads it can be like an alien invader has landed in the house.  Take time out from work to start to get to know your little one.

Take Baby for a Walk  It’s bloomin hard work delivering and caring for a baby and mum will need extra rest in the early days.  Why don’t you take baby out for a walk – it’s great bonding for you and baby and gives mum time to rest.

Do the little things.  Run the hoover round, do a bit of dusting, make the tea, put a load of washing on, change the bed – all of these little jobs mount up so if you can do one or two it makes a huge difference and means you’ll feel like you’re working together without one of you feeling like you’re doing more than your fair share.

Provide some stress-relief. If you already have young children, take the stress away from mum by keeping them entertained while she feeds the baby.

Get to know your baby.  Bathe him, burp him, change nappies, get him dressed ready for the day.  All of these things mean you get to share and really be part of those precious early months.

We’d love to hear how dads got involved with their new arrivals.  What was their most thoughtful act/how did they help/what advice can you give to new dads?

Emma-Jane Makes Award Shortlist!

We are delighted to be shortlisted in Practical Parenting’s Awards 2011 for the Best Feeding Bra.  The Emma-Jane Seamfree nursing bra made the finals thanks to hitting the mark for comfort and cost!  It retails at only £10 and stretches to fit cup sizes b – f which means mums to be can buy a bra, confident in the knowledge it will grow with them. Practical Parenting Awards

MadeForMums Give Emma-JaneThumbs Up

MadeForMums is the UK’s biggest professional review site for baby products, with hundreds of professionally written, independent reviews.  We are delighted that three of our products have featured and each received a whopping 4.5 stars out of 5!

We know it’s important to mums to read product reviews before buying so to know we’re getting it right for mums-to-be and new mums is great. 

Here’s what they said:

Next Generation Seamfree nursing bra (Style 361) – 4.5 stars

Every pregnant woman or breastfeeding mum needs a wardrobe staple when it comes to underwear and the Emma Jane Next Generation Seamfree nursing bra might just be the one.

True to form, Emma Jane has designed a price-conscious garment that rolls comfort, support and value into one, making it a real contender to more expensive seamfree bras on the market.

http://www.madeformums.com/reviews/productreview.aspx?productId=1186&mode=review

Maternity support belt – 4.5 stars

As soon as I started wearing the Emma Jane Maternity Support Belt I had instant relief. Both my back and pelvis felt like they had less strain on them and the horrible wobbly feeling I’d had for weeks disappeared.

One of my biggest problems was that my pelvic pain meant I couldn’t walk as far - the Emma Jane Maternity Support Belt means I can walk more than 100 yards without pain! It works for any shape, you just buy the size you were before you got pregnant and I used the same one right until the end of my pregnancy. http://www.madeformums.com/reviews/productreview.aspx?productId=645&mode=review

Nursing bra 428 – 4.5 stars

The Emma Jane Nursing Bra 428 is a brilliant basic for breastfeeding mothers. Not only is it incredibly easy to release and do up the cups, it offers fantastic support and is ultra-comfy to boot.

I found the Emma Jane Nursing Bra invaluable when breastfeeding my baby son Elliot. I bought one in black and one in white, and used them constantly. Of all the bras I tried during a department store fitting, it offered the firmest support, and was easily the best fit.

http://www.madeformums.com/reviews/productreview.aspx?productId=617&mode=review

Our new retro maternity swimsuit!

Taking your bump somewhere nice this summer? Be sure to grab one of our new retro inspired limited edition maternity swimsuits (style 955).

Available in four great colours – navy, black, pink and red – all with white polka dots, the swimsuit has ruched sides to allow for changes during pregnancy. It also has removable foam pads, a bra shelf for comfort and support and a cotton gusset.

It comes in sizes UK 10/12 and 14/16. They're available now from Envie4U for £26.99 or go to www.emma-jane.com to find a list of stockists. 

Breastfeeding twins - when it doesn't go according to plan

It's Twins & Multiples week this week. Yesterday we heard from Harriet who successfully managed to breastfeed her twins. And she gave us some great tips.

Today we hear from Jenny Rudd - you can read her blog here -a mum who tried to breastfeed her twins - but didn't find it quite as easy. Not surprising, giving the challenges she faced. But we wanted to share her story so that any other mums of twins who may have tried to breastfeed and not managed, can take heart from her positive point of view.

Thanks for sharing your story Jenny.

~~~

I always knew it was going to be a bit of a mission breastfeeding twins but I was keen to do it.  Like many, mine were born prematurely (5 weeks) and I wanted to give them the best start possible.  I had struggled to breastfeed my son two years earlier and gave up after 10 days when he coughed up the blood he had ingested from my shredded nipples.

Both twins were fitted with feeding tubes and taken to the Special Care Baby Unit when they were born.  There was no panic, it was just routine for premature babies.  Twin2 was in an incubator for the first night but I could take them out and cuddle them and feed them as much as I liked after that. 

I checked out of hospital a few hours after their birth and moved into one of the bedrooms in the Special Care Unit.  My husband was at home looking after our son so I felt like I had the best chance possible to get to grips with breastfeeding.  The special care unit was set up in the most supportive fashion possible.  Lazy Boy chairs were everywhere and I had a nurse assigned to me 24 hours a day.

The twins went on a 4 hourly feeding schedule within a day or two.  I became merely an appendage to my boobs.  If the twins weren't draining them of milk, they were being sucked dry by the ker-thump of the industrial sized breast pump.  The twins were only really capable of feeding for 20 minutes or so when they were first born.  They would then be topped them up through the feeding tube with either my own expressed milk or formula.  After this, I would then pump for a further 15 minutes for each breast to stimulate production at the advice of the nurses.

Even with the unbelievable help in hospital, complete quiet and calm atmosphere and access to a wide range of breastfeeding pillows, nipple shields and comfy chairs, I struggled again with breast feeding.  My right arm is paralysed which didn't help the process.  I worried about my boobs flopping around in public while my left arm scrabbled to preserve the last scraps of modesty which remain after childbirth.

The girls stayed in hospital for ten days.  The first feed when I got home was a disaster.  My son was keen to climb up and cuddle the babies and I found it hard to deal with the three of them while my good arm was taken up with nursing.  I was struggling to bond with the babies.  I decided to change to formula.  As you would expect, I was confronted with lots of well meaning but damaging tut-tutting and raised eyebrows.  I was concerned that the babies were too tiny and premature to be fed formula but my ability to cope with them and my son improved greatly once I started to bottle feed them.  The first year or so of babies is often about just battling through.

I would have loved to breastfeed for longer but I felt that, looking at the whole picture for our family, bottle feeding was best.  I love looking at women blithely carrying on about their day with a child plugged in.  I love seeing the effortlessness of their feeding endeavours.  I'm not particularly anti or pro anything when it comes to raising babies.  There are two options for feeding - bottle or breast, but there are infinite combinations of baby and child rearing techniques, of which, feeding is just one aspect.  Whatever you do, as long as you do it with love, that's the best course of action.

My twins are 2 and a half and my son is 4 and a half now.  I would say it probably took my husband and I until the girls were about 20 months old to properly bond with them.  It was just such a battle to get through each day for a long time, I barely had the mental or emotional space for anything other than the routine of child care.  Cheesy though it may sound though, I hug myself with glee these days when I look at my three screaming and shreaking round the garden, robust and healthy and happy.

If you'd like to read more about the reality of screaming and shreaking, have a look at my blog http://jennyjanerudd.blogspot.com

~~~

At Emma-Jane we're all about comfort and support - whether that's with our nursing bras or just being able to share breastfeeding tales amongst new mums. So if you have a story you'd like to share with us, please leave us a comment below.