When should my daughter start wearing a bra?
“When a child starts wearing a bra depends on her maturity. Nowadays a lot of children are maturing much earlier. By the time they are 10 or 11 they are actually already developing breasts. They may not have full-developed breasts but they have breast buds. So when they wear T-shirts, you can see the nipples.
They would start wearing the trainer bras from that age – 10 or 11 – if that's when they start having breast buds.
I think it's good for them to get used to wearing the trainer bras at that age. It's good that they get used to the support and straps and they get used to wearing something for support. They will grow into it gradually as their breasts start to grow. Then they just have to keep changing their bras appropriately.
If they don't want to wear the trainer bra at that point it's fine. The breasts are very small at that age so they don't require support yet.
But they would need to wear a bra when their breasts develop because they need to support them and for modesty.
If a child just has breast buds and she's comfortable to just wear singlets at that age, then she can if she doesn't want to wear a bra just yet.”
How do I prepare my daughter?
“I don't think really there's any preparation that's required. I think a mother just needs to keep an eye on the child and look at her rate of growth. I think if the child is still comfortable and her breasts haven't grown so big yet, I think you can just leave things alone. But, keep an eye on the child. If you feel that her breasts are actually growing in size, then perhaps you'll want to take her to buy a bra.
Once there is breast tissue starting to develop that's when the child should start wearing a bra.”
Should I get her a sports bra for PE (physical education)?
“I don't think there's a real necessity to get a sports bra. As long as the child or teenager wears a good fitting bra it doesn't really matter. There's no real hard and fast rule that you have to use a sports bra when you're doing sports. If your bra is a good fitting one it's good enough.”
Myth: We must, we must, we must increase our bust
“Exercising your chest muscles will definitely not enlarge your breasts. Your breasts rest on the pectoral muscles with fascia in between so it is sort of supported on your pectoral muscles. When your pectoral muscles are firm and tight obviously you can expect your breasts will be equally firm on top but your breasts won't enlarge from doing exercises.
The breast tissue, all said and done, will sag as time goes by because it's part of gravity action on the breast. The way you look after the breast, how you wear your bra, the size of the bra, the cup size – all this is very important. That's why education on wearing good, fitting bras must be right there from the beginning.
There are a lot of people who practise massaging of the breasts. Like any other part, the breast, if massaged regularly, will hypertrophy a little bit. It'll get a little bit bigger because you are constantly massaging the cells there; you are triggering the cells to enlarge. That's why you have the impression that your breasts feel a little bigger.
But these are all very temporary. As soon as you stop they will go back to their normal size.
Of course, there are the oestrogen creams used at some spas where they have traditional massage and which are claimed to enhance your breasts – those are not safe because these creams have oestrogen. By using them, you are actually triggering off hormonal changes and it can actually trigger lumps in your breast and all sorts of other problems as well. It is still hormones at the end of the day so you should avoid all that.”
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