While most women worry if their breasts are too small or too big, some women just wish they had only had two of them.
It’s no secret to doctors, but very few of us are aware that millions of Americans are hiding some sexy secrets under their clothes: they have more than two breasts. General estimates say that this natural anomaly occurs in about 1-2 percent of the general population (3-6 million people). Other doctors say the true rate is as much as 6% of the population (which translates to 19 million Americans in the U.S).
So I want to bring awareness to this condition that affects so many people and shed light on the subject to help them step out of any shame they feel about a phenomenon which is far more common than we publicly acknowledge.
WHY DOES IT HAPPEN?
Polymastia is inherited. You are either born with the gene or not. It is not a defect. It’s an anomaly (an unusual difference) in your DNA.
The result is that extra breasts develop along the normal milk lines in a female body. Milk lines run from a female’s underarms (or axilla) down to her crotch. In 94% or more of us, only two breasts appear on our chests. Women with this condition may have extra sets of breasts continuing down their torso as you would see on a momma cat. More commonly, one or more breasts will grow from their armpits at the top of their milk lines or under their primary breasts.
The growths may appear as squishy lumps without nipples, or they could grow into fully-formed and fully-functioning breasts, with glands that produce milk and nipples that successfully suckle babies.
Terms for this natural phenomenon vary. The medical term is polymastia (for many breasts). It’s often called supernumerary breasts, to indicate that the breasts are more numerous than the typical set of two. Sometimes, they are called accessory breasts (no, they don’t come with a Luis Vuitton tag).
Mammae erratica (erratic boobs! my favorite new Latin term!) is a type of polymastia where breasts develop on random parts of the body. In people with mammae erratica, breasts do not form along milk lines down the abdomen. Otherwise, these “erratic” breasts are structurally the same as regular boobs, can grow to full size and can nurse babies.
Polymastia, supernumerary breasts, and mammae erraticae occur in men AND women. Women, however, are twice as likely to be born with them as men.
In 1980, doctors reported one of the strangest cases of all when they removed a fully-formed breast from the back thigh of a man in his 70s.
In men, the extra breasts are most likely to show up as fleshy or puffy growths, with no specific characteristics to make them resemble breasts. Even doctors can miss it, misdiagnosing the growth as a fatty tumor (also known as a lipoma). So some people, presumably, go to the ends of their lives, never knowing they had tiny breasts on their body.
While you may be born with the condition, the first signs show up in puberty, particularly in females, when hormones start circulating through the body. But, again, unless the tissue increases in size, most people dismiss the lumps and bumps as something else. However, in some women, puberty is a total game-changer. This is because female hormones at that age promote breast growth. So in females, the breasts may reach full size when puberty hits or, even more commonly, later in life when they get pregnant as floods of hormones in their systems trigger the growth of once-nondescript lumps. Their “new” breasts enlarge to full size and may also have nipples that are sensitive and responsive, function normally to feed babies, as well as normal looking and feeling areolas. Extra breasts may grow as large as the original twosome.
It can come as a huge shock to discover that in addition to the blessing of new life, the birth-mother also got some new breasts. The tissue was really there all along but it took a storm of hormones to stimulate their growth to nursing-size. Making it more complicated, since they typically sprout under their arm, and fill with milk like normal breasts, the discomfort factor is huge. Lifting, even moving the arms, can become a painful chore after delivery.
[div class=”statement_boxed”]SEXOLOGIST’S TIP: if you or a young woman in your family has odd lumps along milk lines or in her armpits, ask your doctor to assess them. While you can’t have them removed until they reach full size, getting a diagnosis and knowing what to expect will alleviate the shock of suddenly growing big milky boobs just as you’re trying to heal from giving birth and caring for a new baby. [end-div]
Surgery is not required for this condition because there is no harm or special risk in having extra breasts. Indeed, some people live quite peacefully with multiple breasts and accept them as part of their natural design. Since this condition is largely congenital (someone in your family line had it), it generally will occur to more than one member of a family. That means your mom, sister or aunt might have it too, and you were raised to see it as normal. Or you may grow up feeling that it is a special part of your family heritage. When raised with a positive attitude about the extra breasts, people can learn to love them as extraordinary features of their body, without judgment.
The exception, of course, is when the breasts either limit mobility (whether because of their location or size) or when they cause you psychological pain and embarrassment. Not everyone learns to love what they have and women who develop full breasts during pregnancy can experience real emotional pain at being so different. Women who suddenly develop full-sized breasts develop feelings of shame or insecurity about the way they look naked. Some women feel rejected by their husbands or become celibate rather than remove their clothes in front of a new lover. In those cases, surgery is a good option to give them power over how they look and to improve their self-image. Overall, doctors view surgery for polymastia as an aesthetic choice rather than a medical necessity.
POLYMASTIA IN HISTORY
If you’ve ever seen an ancient fertility goddess with several breasts, the inspiration came from known women who were born with extra breasts. And if you know some Greek history, you may recall that a statue of Artemis of Ephesus, worshiped as a fertility goddess, was famously represented as having two rows of breasts running down her chest. The extra breasts made her extra sexually powerful to ancient peoples.
In the 16th century, the Queen of England Anne Boleyn was reputed to have a third breast. Although rare, people at the time considered polymastia a fortuitous rarity. It was an omen of great fertility and symbolic of ultra-feminity. These days, not so much. We have become a world hooked on norms and judgments for everyone who doesn’t fit a mold. It’s a pity that a fairly common biological anomaly, once viewed with awe and with genetic roots that go back to the dawn of humanity, can make people feel like biological freaks these days.
One of the most sensational tales concerns Therese Ventre of Marseilles, France, who, like her mother developed a third breast. While her mother’s extra breast was located in on her chest below her right main breasts, Therese’s third breast grew on her left thigh. The breast grew to full size during puberty and then filled with milk when she was pregnant. According to numerous accounts of the case, Therese had five children and nursed them using all three of her breasts to feed them. The babies did not mind and I guess Therese found it handy to have a third source of nourishment for them! There are many other cases in the medical history of mothers who successfully used their “accessory breasts” to nurse children.
Since the 1800s, doctors have patiently documented the condition, giving us a wealth of medical information on their development and their treatment. Almost any part of the body may be affected. Doctors have reported cases of breasts growing in the nape of the neck, the face, upper arms, hips, the vulva, thighs, the ear, the area between the anus and the genitals, the shoulders, on the back, and on the buttocks.
The all-time record for the number of breasts on one person was documented in 1886 when a doctor reported caring for a patient who had 8 full breasts in addition to the typical 2, bringing her grand total to 10 functional (i.e., she could nurse with them) breasts.
In 1980, doctors reported one of the strangest cases of all when they removed a fully-formed breast from the back thigh of a man in his 70s. The man had gone his whole life not worrying about it, assuming it was a fatty tumor and apparently no other doctors had bothered to check. The 1980 doctors decided to remove it nonetheless. In 1997, the Journal of Pediatric Surgery published an article describing the removal of breast tissue from a patient’s face. And in 2006, Dermatology Online reported the first known case of an accessory breast located on a patient’s foot.
ARE THERE ANY MEDICAL RISKS OF POLYMASTIA?
None except the obvious. As with all breasts, the supernumerary kind should be routinely checked for cancer and other breast diseases. They are no more prone to problems than the two on your upper chest, so whatever you do to keep those in good health applies to any other breast tissue on your body, regardless of its location.
While extra breasts themselves aren’t a medical risk, people who have them should be screened for the possibility of other congenital conditions that may co-exist with polymastia, including kidney and throat issues.
HOW ABOUT EXTRA NIPPLES?
Far more common than the supernumerary breast is the related anomaly of tripple nipples. Polythelia, or supernumerary nipple, (the extra nipple is called a polyth) affects roughly 1 in every 18 people. At least that many people are diagnosed as having polythelia, while many may go their whole lives without realizing their curious little moles are nipples.
Like extra breasts, extra nipples most commonly spring up along the milk lines. Because they are a pretty common phenomenon, doctors have classified extra nipples into eight diagnostic categories to denote how nipple-like the nipples actually are. On one end are nipples that only look like a small patch of hair or big freckles; on the other, they may appear as tiny boobs, with areolas and nipples on top. As with polymastia, polythelia can be so unintrusive that some people never find out that the small oddity on their body is a nipple.
Happily, we don’t seem to have to have the same fear and anxiety about extra nipples as our ancestors did. In 17th and 19th century Catholic and Protestant cultures throughout Europe and North America, an extra nipple was considered the mark of a witch. Needless to say, a lot of moles, warts, and freckles were poked and prodded in the quest for the witch’s mark or “witch’s tit,” and wrongfully identified as supernumerary nipples by religious fanatics on a quest to root out witches and persecute them. The same religious frenzy inspired the myth that witches used their extra nipples to feed supernatural devil creatures, like imps.
These days, there’s a bit of chic in being different. Several celebrities have admitted they have third nipples, most notably Mark Wahlberg, who gave an interview about his in 2005, saying that he embraces the rarity of it and treats it as a prized possession. Other stars who’ve admitted to third nipples include Lily Allen, Bill Paxton, Zac Efron, Carrie Underwood and Tilda Swinton. Legendary comedienne Moms Mabley said she had one as well.
Life! It’s all about variety. 🙂
