Mother's Little Helper: The Best Nursing Bra to Make Breastfeeding Easier
Motherhood is a beautiful, wondrous thing and a unique experience in this life. And breastfeeding your newborn is a loving shared experience the likes of which are not easily found elsewhere. Whether you are pumping or breastfeeding directly, a good nursing bra can make all the difference, especially in a modern world where a woman is often in the position of needing to breastfeed between an otherwise busy life.
Beyond its busy pace, the modern world also offers a wide range of opportunities when it comes to picking something as important as a nursing or pumping bra. This is both good and bad, however, as a wide variety of choices can be just as overwhelming as it is helpful. It is in this spirit that we made this list of the best nursing bra options available on the market today. This way, busy moms like you can choose from a simple list rather than having to do a ton of research on your own. Congrats, new moms and moms-to-be–we hope our nursing bra recommendations help save you some time!
5 Best Nursing Bra Options
1. Bodily - Best Overall Nursing Bra
2. Kindred Bravely - Award-Winning Extended Support
3. Momcozy - Coziest Nursing Sports Bra
4. Storq - Sensational Sensory Support
5. Love and Fit - Most Versatile Nursing Sports Bra
Best Nursing Bra Options - In-Depth Reviews
1. Bodily - Best Overall Nursing Bra
Pros
- Designed to help avoid clogged ducts and mastitis
- Named best maternity bra by InStyle
- Bundle purchase options with discount savings options
Cons
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None
Product Review and Features
The Bodily Everything Bra is among the best nursing bra options because it really does have everything. The Everything Bra has not only been named the best maternity bra by InStyle, but also the Most Comfortable Nursing Sleep Bra by WhatToExpect, and the most comfortable PostPartum Bra by Women’s Health.
Bodily’s entry leads our list with a combination of softness, support, and adjustability, all while avoiding padding and lift. A woman’s body is going through so much during breastfeeding that a little softness goes a long way. In the same vein, support in a nursing bra is equally as important since moms still need to keep everything in place in between feedings. And adjustability is key to ensure mom is able to change things up to continue to fit her changing body and daily needs.
It also speaks to the professional vision of Bodily’s design that both padding and lift are omitted from the Everything Bra. After all, maintaining access to one’s breasts for multiple feedings or pumpings per day is rather important.
The Everything Bra is available in six colors (Soft Black, Clay/Clay, Clay/White, Grey Marl, Falls, Ember), all made with soft and comfortable fabric but not lacking in a super soft stretch. It also has an extended back closure for unexpected and unpredictable sizing no matter what stage you are in during your pregnancy, postpartum, or breastfeeding journey.
Sizes, Discounts, and Promotions
The Bodily Everything Bra is offered to customers in sizes from 32A to 46C. Bodily offers single nursing bra purchase options or a 3-pack Everyday Bra bundle pack. The bundle pack doesn’t deny Momma's choice options, as customers still get to pick out the details and color for each bra in the bundle pack.
New customers can get 10 percent off their first order by subscribing to Bodily’s email subscriber list and free shipping is available for orders over $100 USD.
The Bottom Line
The Bodily Everyday Bra was designed with a lactation consultant specifically with moms and their comfort in mind making it the best nursing bra on the market, as well as one of the best sleep bras. Bodily believes in mothers at any stage, whether it be during pregnancy, postpartum, different stages of breastfeeding, or even pregnancy loss. They believe in the best quality of bra for women and they believe in the best support for women.
2. Kindred Bravely - Award-Winning Extended Support
Pros
- Each nursing/pumping bra comes with an additional bra extender
- Multiple award-winning nursing bra
- Wireless for added comforter
Cons
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Special launder instructions which might inconvenience some
Product Review and Features
Kindred Bravely Simply Sublime nursing bra is a multi-award winning bra. It has won the Best in Parent Test Parent Approved Awards as well as a Mom’s Choice Awards Gold Winner. The Simply Sublime nursing bra was also a finalist in the What to Expect Must Have Nursing Bra competition.
The Simply Sublime nursing bra comes in five great colors, all beautifully neutral colors making it easy to pair with virtually anything from daily wear to even utilizing it as a sleep bra. It is not an underwire bra but that doesn't mean that it falls short of the support needed for nursing mothers. The wireless construction and moderate stretch provided by this nursing bra is perfect for any stage needed whether that be during pregnancy, postpartum, or breastfeeding.
Kindred Bravely believes its customers deserve the best for their spending and provide a bra extender with each bra purchased. This ensures that each nursing bra, featuring hook and eye back closures, can grow with them during each stage, understanding that although babies are priceless, clothing items are costly.
The Simply Sublime bra also features easy access and one-hand use nursing clips for easy convenient feedings, making even those middle-of-the-night feedings flow more smoothly with the easy-use drop-down system of their bra. Plus its removable padding makes it so simple to switch to nursing pads for when Moms need to use balms or creams or simply want to avoid leaks and stains on their bras. After all, nursing pads are a key element of breastfeeding, so providing room for them is important.
Sizes, Discounts, and Promotions
Kindred Bravely has a patented Insta Bra Fit Finder Size Measurement Formula that helps customers find the best fit for their bras. They also offer a bra quiz to help customers find the perfect style and size. The Simply Sublime nursing bra is available in sizes that range from Small to XXXL/2X/Busty.
Customers can also be comforted by knowing that Kindred Bravely offers easy free returns for 90 days if you don’t love the way your new nursing bra fits. Free shipping comes with orders over $75 and a free tote with orders over $150.
The Bottom Line
Kindred Bravely takes second place on our list with the Simply Sublime nursing bra, proving itself in an award-winning fashion to not only panel judges but everyday women of every background. Combining a female-focused design with accessibility and efficiency, this nursing bra lives up to its name in full and would be a key anchor of any mother’s set of best nursing bras.
Learn more about Kindred Bravely
3. Momcozy - Coziest Nursing Sports Bra
Pros
- Extra padded widened straps help avoid discomfort from shoulder digging
- Sporty fit but doesn’t flatten bust, helping avoid engorgement pain
- Maintains the shape of, and functions as, a sports bra while offering versatile fit options via both back and front adjustable straps
Cons
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Style and color option availability limited to only two colors
Product Review and Features
Momcozy Nursing Sports Bra is not your average sports bra. Gone are the days of restricting, suffocating sports bras that women regret putting on and fear and agonize over how they will remove them. In fact, the comfortable wear and convenience of this sports bra was a leading factor driving its inclusion in this best nursing bra list.
Unique to Momcozy is that this is among the best nursing sports bras because it is the best of both worlds: quality breast support for an active lifestyle while also offering easy access to breastfeeding or pumping. In addition, it is also a good-looking bra. Momcozy accomplishes this through its patented o-ring racerback bra design, as well as designing this nursing bra in such a way as to appear to be a normal t-shirt-type bra cut in the front. This makes it a more versatile pick for a nursing or pumping bra than one might think.
In terms of the nursing function, this bra has moms in mind with an easy-access design. Momcozy brings in a combination of snap closures and one-click releases to ensure active moms can switch gears from exercise to feeding simply and quickly. Busy moms will appreciate the ease of access this nursing bra provides while also ensuring the same support you expect from a sports bra.
The Momcozy Nursing Sports Bra is available in two color options: blue and black.
Sizes, Discounts, and Promotions
You can get 10 percent off your first order if you sign up for the Momcozy email subscriber list and multiple discount code options for additional savings. Sizes run from medium to XXXL.
The Bottom Line
Momcozy scores a sporty goal with the Nursing Sports Bra, combining visual appeal, key support, and easy nursing access into one top-of-the-line bra option.
4. Storq - Sensational Sensory Support
Pros
- Completely tagless; beneficial for moms with skin sensory issues
- Storq offers ease with returns, even pairing with an outside company for even more convenience for their customers
- Bras come in a neutral color palette, perfect for capsule wardrobe coordination
Cons
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Light support only, might not be optimal for women who desire full support from a supportive nursing bra
Product Review and Features
The Storq Everyday Bra is so comfortable you either will forget you are wearing it or you will never want to take it off. This light support bra is underwire-free, making the Everyday Bra by Storq a go to for moms when it comes to a sleep bra.
The adjustable back straps Storq uses for this nursing bra makes it comfortable for any stage needed for moms during pregnancy, postpartum, or the breastfeeding stages. It also features a microfiber hook and eye closure in the back for added comfort and more comfortable texture and feel.
Sizes, Discounts, and Promotions
Storq offers their customers a sizing guide link to ease the sizing process of picking the correct size. The Storq Everyday Bra is offered in a wide range of sizes from cup sizes A- through DD/E
Storq also makes returns extremely easy for their customers. Returns can be made within 30 days of the original purchase date. The company works with Happy Returns Bar, a company that provides customers that have online shopped a local drop off location for their returns that have thousands of locations nationwide.
The Bottom Line
Aside from the amazing features of the Storq Everyday Bra, is their website. Storq firmly believes in their customers and making the accessibility of their website conducive to all of their shoppers. The site features 100% percent accessibility adjustability for the following profiles:
- Seizure safe profiles
- Vision impaired profiles
- ADHD friendly profiles
- Cognitive disability profiles
- Keyboard navigation and motor assistance
- Blind users (screen reader availability)
Being inclusive, not just by offering nursing bras to fit every stage during transitions through motherhood but also with whatever life and extra bodily differences individuals might be facing, is one big reason why we had to include Storq’s Everyday Bra on our list of must-have best nursing bras.
5. Love and Fit - Most Versatile Nursing Sports Bra
Pros
- Wide variety of colors to choose
- Adjustable straps for loose or snug fit
- Unique design/sports bra fit
Cons
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Customer reviews indicate that bras run small, not true to size
Product Review and Features
The Love & Fit Strappy Back 2.0 Nursing Sports Bra comes in 6 colors, and you won’t know which one to purchase first. The Nursing Sports Bra also features a removable cup design so nursing mommas can easily insert nursing pads to avoid leaks, which makes this nursing bra super convenient and functional without giving way to being stylish.
As far as being stylish, aside from the many color options it has, it also has a super trendy strappy back design that is adjustable. The adjustable straps make it wearable and provide comfort no matter the cup size or fit desired. The adjustable straps also provide lift for looseness depending on the activity being engaged in.
The Love & Fit Strappy Back 2.0 Nursing Sports Bra comes in six color options: Black, Slate Blue, Light Heather Grey, White, Island Blue and Black Leopard.
Sizes, Discounts, and Promotions
Love & Fit offers their customers free shipping on orders over $75 and their Strappy Black 2.0 Nursing Sports Bra is available to customers in sizes that run from Small to 3XL.
Love & Fit has a point system for shoppers that at different point levels are redeemable for merchandise and other bonus winnings. Customers can start earning points right away by easily creating an account on Love & Fit’s website.
Points are redeemable at certain point scale levels for free Love & Fit products as well as discounts exclusive to members. Not only can you earn points by just shopping but you can also earn points by following Love & Fit on Instagram, as well as writing a review on their website.
Love & Fit also wants customers to bring their friends! If current customers refer their friends, they provide friends with $10 coupons toward their purchases and provide the referral customers with an additional $10 off coupon to use towards their next orders.
This mom-friendly company understands budget restraints and works with multiple installment companies so that moms can achieve comfort, support, simplicity, and improved breast health while simultaneously being able to stick to a budget and break up their payments into increments if needed.
The Bottom Line
The Love & Fit Strappy Back 2.0 Nursing Sports Bra has fabric that is super luxe and functional nursing clips that are easy and quick to use. The straps are wide and stretchy - much more comfortable than most nursing bras that are strappy and sporty-styled.
Another great bonus about Love & Fit as a company is that they offer community support through their Post Baby Fitness Program which is home based but offers a wide online community for story sharing, and mom advice. They believe in their customers and believe in not only support from their nursing bras but also from their customer community, which is why this sports bra made our list of the best nursing bras around.
How We Picked the Best Nursing and Pumping Bras
We made this list of the best bras for nursing or pumping by convening a panel of mothers, writers, and researchers to investigate, test, and consult. Together, this panel identified a wide variety of brands to review and analyze.
The analyses conducted took into account various facets of each nursing or pumping bra, including brand reputation, customer review levels, manufacturing practices, third-party endorsements, industry awards, product variety and quality, and product features. The products listed here are the cream of the crop–the very best nursing bras available on the market today.
How To Choose the Right Nursing Bra?
It is so worth making sure you choose the right nursing bra. However, knowing what is the best nursing and pumping bra for you is probably something that many just might not have the right details about to make the most informed decision. We have got your back, or in this case your front ladies!
A large health risk and a major uncomfortable issue that can occur with breastfeeding and pumping are clogged ducts and mastitis. A leading factor of clogged ducts which can lead to mastitis is wearing nursing bras that have an underwire. Recommended by most lactation specialists are wire-free bras. Underwire bras can be constricting and cause compression in all the wrong places which can cause clogs in your milk flow to form, resulting in the ducts in your breasts becoming clogged.
Mastitis and clogged ducts are pretty much two of the worst things to experience aside from running out of coffee and not having any cheese to snack on.
Another important need-to-know consideration when choosing the right nursing or pumping bra is ensuring that the fit is correct. A poor fitting and incorrect bra can again contribute to compression, chafing, restriction, irritation, and other issues that can result in clogging of the milk ducts in the breasts.
Mastitis can also be a result of not choosing the right bra. Mastitis can cause flu-like symptoms. Some women experience such extreme breast and/or nipple pain that they are painful to the touch and have to abstain from latch breastfeeding. Other physical symptoms that can result are body aches, chills, over 100.4F fevers, hot to the touch and engorged breasts, lumps or wedge-like hardened areas of the breasts, and even visible red streaking of the breasts.
Lastly, to choose the right nursing bra, take into consideration the most important thing: yourself. Consider these self-assessment questions:
What is your favorite kind of open and close type of bra?
- snap
- zip
- hook
What is your favorite kind of cup style?
- soft cup style
- padded cup style
- balconette cup style
- underwire cup style (yes, they do make underwire nursing bras).
Editor’s Note: most lactation consultants advise against using underwire nursing bra styles until further along in the journey of your nursing. Earlier on, it is suggested that you throw on that super preferred and comfy bra. This is much healthier for your breasts and will help you avoid clogged ducts or hot, red, and sore breasts.
What kind of laundering lifestyle did you have pre-baby? What kind of laundering lifestyle do you hope to have post-baby?
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In other words, this question hints at a “do you plan on having help from a partner, neighbor, or poor work friend you suckered in to just visit but then guilted into doing a load while they were there?” mindset.
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The type of material and general bra type you buy has to do with this question too. Some best nursing bra options featured in this article are hand-wash only while others are machine washable. So if you would rather not deal with having to take the time to hand wash your “over the shoulder boulder holder” (Thanks, Bette Midler!) then that deals with your laundering lifestyle as well.
Okay, now hug yourself and brace yourself for the following tidbits, because they’re not pretty.
You're going to be perspiring more because you will be wearing your nursing bra for longer periods of time than you wore your pre-baby bras. This might mean needing to buy some that aren’t hand-wash only and making sure that they have a quick laundering time.
Your bras are going to be dirtier than normal. This also has to do with laundering time and quantity of bras owned and just the availability of enough time in your schedule to be able to wash and dry. Being a pre-mom, new mom, baby mom, even a pet mom is hard. But making sure you have clean and available nursing bras for you is really important for your breast health and comfort.
Benefits of Nursing Bras
Motherhood is an amazing chapter to embark upon in your life. Wanting what is best for your baby becomes such a natural and autonomous yearning that more often than not mothers forget that they too need to be making the best decision for themselves and their bodies, especially when breastfeeding.
Regardless of what your goals are as a mother, you can't achieve them if you aren’t taking proper care of yourself and providing yourself with the items that improve your quality of life as well. Let go of the guilt and invest in some decent nursing bras or pumping bras. Your body will happily thank you for it.
One great benefit of a nursing bra? Comfort factor. Say goodbye to the days of uncomfortable bras. The best nursing bras are automatically more comfortable than your regular run-of-the-mill women’s bra. Whether it be an underwire nursing bra, a sleeping bra, a pumping bra or a supportive nursing bra, they are all made for ease and comfort for a pregnant, postpartum, and breast feeding mother.
They say that it takes a small village to help raise children and that you should have a support system to help with advice, options for respite, and just a few friends to have as a sounding board when you need to chat and get things off your chest.
The second benefit of a great nursing bra is something that falls into this category, support. A supportive nursing bra can make all the difference to physical changes and the negative impact those changes can have on your body.
Pregnancy and nursing do mean you welcome a new life into your world. But that doesn’t mean you have to keep feeding into the old ways of the past and keep quiet on the challenges that come with pregnancy and nursing and the discomfort that regularly accompanies both of these life changes. Pregnancy alone for most women can increase breast size which can automatically put weight and strain pressure on the neck, shoulder blades, and back.
Another great benefit of a nursing bra is the amazing versatility and styles they come in. Most nursing bras not only offer the convenience of easy feeding, one-handed snap down, easy access nipple flap-down for feedings (not to mention those that function as pumping bras), but also are shapely and convenient to keep on throughout the day and for working out.
This saves time for moms to not have to pack and plan multiple wardrobe changes for different tasks and eases the transition between different activities while keeping the ease for breastfeeding completely attainable no matter where you are or what activity you are engaging in.
When Should You Buy Nursing Bras?
Whether you're a pre-planner or you like to wait until the last minute, the best time to buy nursing bras is prior to the arrival of your sweet bundle(s) of joy. Making sure you are at least prepared in that sense is important because waiting until it is too late to ensure that you are taking care of basic postpartum needs for yourself is just adding extra unnecessary stress to your already rapidly changing life.
Nursing bras are definitely an item you should plan on packing in your hospital bag. With that being said, around 36 weeks is a good time to finish up any last-minute shopping trips for prepping for go-time.
This is also an ideal time for being measured for the best nursing and pumping bra. During pregnancy, many women experience growth and expansion in their rib cages and increase the cup size of their breasts. This fluctuation can sometimes make it hard to determine what size nursing bra they should get.
This definitely doesn’t mean you have to wait until your last trimester to make the switch. For plenty of women, once they find out about maternity and nursing bras, it becomes an immediate change from regular bras as early as the first trimester at the first sign of breast soreness or increase in breast size.
The less restrictive comfort and convenient support found in a nursing bra without the discomfort of an underwire bra is sometimes all it takes for some to choose to leave a regular bra behind.
How Many Nursing Bras Do You Need?
Sometimes it seems like there are so many questions and unknowns when it comes to pregnancy and becoming a parent that when faced with questions such as this, even the not-so-complicated questions can stump us because we are already stretched so thin with the anxieties of the unknowns involved in parenting.
There isn’t a right or wrong answer to how many nursing bras you need…it entirely depends on the lifestyle you lead.
If you plan on buying nursing and pumping bras during your pregnancy, keep in mind that your ribcage can continue to expand throughout your pregnancy. Make sure when buying nursing bras or maternity bras during pregnancy, to check the fit and buy them on the tightest clasp setting, giving you room to grow with your pregnancy for rib cage growth or cup size increase. A good way to save money and be cost-efficient is to buy bra extenders during your pregnancy to use with your existing bras.
Generally, a good rule of thumb is to have three great quality nursing bras or nursing and pumping bras. The idea is that you would then have one for wearing, one for backup, and one that is dirty and currently in the laundry. Another tip is to avoid buying multiple bras of the same type. For example, rather than buying three underwire bras, try finding an everyday nursing bra and a sleep nursing bra to switch up with an underwire bra.
Obviously, having nursing and pumping bras is just a starting example to mold around your lifestyle. If you only do laundry once a week, the better option here would be to invest in a higher quantity. Budget restraints might only allow one to three bras, which is also okay.
Do what works best for you. There are great websites that offer bundle purchase options, coupon codes, and other discounts or additional savings that we have gathered and shared above.
Conclusion
Just as in many things, you need the right tools for the job. When the goal is breastfeeding or pumping conveniently and effectively, having the best nursing bra is pivotal. The recommendations on this list offer the best nursing bras available today, so you can save time researching and choosing from whichever sounds best, as a start. Or maybe you might want to try more than one and see which of the best nursing bra choices you like most.
Whichever way you go with it, congratulations and we hope you get yourself a great option to help make the beautiful process of breastfeeding a convenient one!
