How to Massage Your Breasts and the Benefits

Knowing how to massage your breasts has important benefits. One of the most important benefits of breast massage therapy is promoting lymphatic drainage from the lymph vessels in and around the breasts. Stimulating lymphatic drainage may help prevent breast cancer and can also help relieve breast pain from a number of different causes, including pregnancy, breastfeeding, and PMS.

Reasons NOT to massage your breasts include infection or an undiagnosed lump.

Breast massage can promote lymphatic drainage.

Breast Anatomy

The fatty tissue of the breasts contains blood vessels, glands, milk ducts, ligaments, lymphatic vessels, and nerves. Lymphatic fluid from the breasts move through the lymphatic vessels into a system of glands (lymph nodes) that filter the fluid, removing toxins and other unwanted waste products. 

These lymph nodes are linked with other lymph nodes throughout your body and are an important line of defense against the spread of disease. When lymphatic vessels and nodes work less effectively, often due to lack of physical movement or tight clothing (especially a badly fitted bra), your body’s immune system works less well, weakening the body's ability to resist disease.

Do Massage Therapists Massage Breasts?

Most massage therapists don't massage the breasts, and in some places aren't legally allowed to do so. A massage therapist who does offer the massage needs specialized training that includes breast anatomy and physiology, indications and contraindications, pathology, draping techniques, therapist-client boundaries, expected outcomes, and client safety.

The massage therapist should always ask your permission, and only do as much as you are comfortable with.

Massage therapists who want to massage the breasts need good training and clear and appropriate boundaries. Here's more information for professionals:

• Breast Wellness
• Lymph Drainage Therapy for Breast Care
• DVD: Therapeutic Breast Massage

How to Massage Your Breasts

Breast self-massage is often the best option for women. The following video shows how to massage your breasts. Always be gentle to avoid damaging the ligaments that support the breasts.

Here's another way to massage your breasts:

1. Use one hand to cup underneath your breast. With the other hand use gentle but firm strokes to massage from the outer breast to the nipple.
2. Place your thumb and middle fingers in a “V” shape. Press from the outside edges of the breast to the center, massaging the entire area.
3. Raise your arm toward the ceiling. Place the opposite hand where the outer chest connects to the arm. Use gentle strokes to massage the upper chest and inner armpit (the lymphatic area).
4. Massage the area below the neck and the sides of the throat from the collarbone to underneath the ear.

Source: Yoga Journal

You can also use essential oils for breast massage.

Breastfeeding and Breast Massage

Massaging the breasts may improve the lactation and breastfeeding experience.

How a Breast Massage Can Help With Breastfeeding explains the benefits include encouraging milk flow, soothing pain, and relieving clogged ducts and mastitis. The article includes massage instructions.

The study Effectiveness of Breast Massage on Expression of Breast Milk concluded breast massage is effective in increasing the volume of expressed breast milk, reducing pain during expression, and improving the expression experience.

Effectiveness of Breast Massage for the Treatment of Women With Breastfeeding Problems: A Systematic Review found that all included studies reported reduced pain regardless of the breast massage technique used.

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About the Author

Carol Wiley is a retired massage therapist and freelance writer. She uses her deep interest in aromatherapy and essential oils to research their benefits and uses and bring you summaries and blends with links to more resources.

If you find this site useful, you can show your support by buying through my affiliate links. The site is a labor of love, and I appreciate any income that helps keep it up and running.

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Image: Maksim [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

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