What's useful to notice in the mirror about your working breasts?

1. Your breasts' shape and symmetry

Are your breasts, nipples and areolas asymmetrical?

It is normal and also very common to find that your breasts, nipples and areolas are different in size and shape between the left and right sides. The difference in breast and nipple shape means that the way you bring your baby to your body on one side might be different to the way you do it on the other.

2. Your breast fall

Where do your breasts fall relative to your ribcage and tummy when you are seated and semi-reclined, or leaning back at a 45 degree angle?

It's helpful to be aware that fit and hold differs between breasts depending on the difference in each breast's fall relative to gravity, and that your baby needs to be held just where each breast and nipple fall (not higher or lower) even though breast fall is often different between sides.

Women naturally have a round abdomen (- those taunt flat tummies you see everywhere in social media and in advertisements are definitely not the norm). This is especially the case after giving birth. We need to fit your baby into your body in a way that takes into account your lovely round post-birth contour.

You can find out about working with your own breast-belly contour here.

3. The direction your nipples look

Does one nipple look in a direction quite different to your other nipple?

It's normal for your nipples to look in different directions, but it helps to be aware of this because your baby's fit and hold will differ between breasts depending on where your nipples look.

You can find out about the directions nipples look and how this affects breastfeeding here.

4. Landing pad exposure

Is your breast's landing pad encroached upon, for example, by your tummy or by clothing?

Each of your breast's landing pads need to be fully exposed - in a 10 centimeter diameter around your nipple - for positional stability in breastfeeding.

You can find out about this here and here.

5. The shape of your nipples

How high or low is your nipple compared to your areola? How wide is your nipple at its base?

A lower nipple height or wider nipple width may require more careful attention to fit and hold, but are not reasons to think that you and your baby will have problems breastfeeding.

You can find out about this here.