Pregnancy and childbirth can definitely change a person's body and their body image — even for Gisele Bündchen.
In her new memoir, Lessons: My Path to a Meaningful Life, Bündchen revealed that she had a breast augmentation in 2015, when she realised that her breasts were uneven after breastfeeding her two children. In the book, she wrote that she instantly regretted the procedure.
"When I woke up, I was like, 'What have I done?' I felt like I was living in a body I didn’t recognise," she told People. "For the first year I wore [baggy] clothes because I felt uncomfortable."
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
She also told People that prior to the procedure, her self-esteem took a dip when her body changed after breastfeeding.
"I was always praised for my body, and I felt like people had expectations from me that I couldn’t deliver," she said. "I felt very vulnerable, because I can work out, I can eat healthy, but I can’t change the fact that both of my kids enjoyed the left boob more than the right. All I wanted was for them to be even and for people to stop commenting on it."
Overall, your breasts can be different sizes even if you're not pregnant or breastfeeding, but pregnancy and nursing can definitely exacerbate any size differences and change your body, especially if you're feeding exclusively from one breast like Bündchen was (but like she said, she had no control over what her children preferred). She didn't mention having the implants removed at any point, but should she want to have more children and breastfeed in the future, it generally should be safe to do so with implants.
Since the procedure, however, Bündchen says, she got her self-esteem back on track with some help from her husband, Tom Brady.
"He just said, 'I love you no matter what' and that I looked beautiful," she told People. "This was definitely another lesson: What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. But I wish I would have learned that a different way."