Anita Maternity Bra 5135 – 34C

We’re really going to try and get going with our Guest Cups now. If you don’t remember us talking about these before, we’re planning to feature lots of different women on our blog, starting off with friends and family, talking about their bra journeys at different points in their lives; a range of women who are all different heights and weights; big cups, little cups, medium cups, possibly even no cups, flat cups, full cups, mismatched cups, widespread and narrow cups. So as you can tell, we want to feature everyone, because no two boobs are alike (even when they’re both on your body!).

We’re starting off today with Helen! Helen is currently pregnant, due on the 5th May with her first. She’s the same age as us, and before being pregnant wore a 32D. These pictures are from mid-March, so at 7 months pregnant.

Anita got in contact with us to offer us some bras to review, and once we saw their stunning range of maternity bras, we thought we might be able to take advantage of this for Helen. She went out and got professionally measured before we ordered it in, since we’re not sure of how measuring should be done when you’re pregnant, and came up as a 34C, but was told she could also wear a 36C for comfort purposes and because at that point she was still likely to get a bit bigger both in band and cup.

Now this is the weird thing about maternity bras that you’re wearing during pregnancy. In general, it’s recommended to buy a bra that fits snugly on the loosest hooks so that as the material stretches you can tighten it. BUT with a maternity bra, you should be looking for one that fastens snugly on the TIGHTEST hook, so you can loosen it as you and baby expand. Of course, one of the most important things when pregnant is wearing things that are comfortable, so you may want to go up a band or cup size so that nothing is unnecessarily tight.

The thing you hear about pregnancy a lot is not to wear underwires – apparently this is a myth. The only reason you shouldn’t be wearing underwires is if your bra is too small because the underwire will sit on breast tissue and damage it. Therefore, if your bra fits correctly, you can wear underwire because it should be sat around the tissue at the side and in the inframammary fold (where the underneath of the breast meets the rib cage), under the breast tissue, and not damaging anything. You need to keep a close eye on things though because you’re growing at a much quicker rate than usual, and breasts in particular will grow quickly.

So onto Helen’s bra! She went for the Anita Maternity Bra 5135 (catchy name…!). She felt that the bra was really comfortable and the cups fit her just right. It’s quite clear in the pictures that the wiring is nicely encompassing all the breast tissue and holding everything in place. She said she felt like there was a lot of support. This is particularly good during pregnancy as you’ll be dealing with breasts that feel a lot heavier to you and fairly different on your chest. The underwiring gave her a gorgeous flattering shape which she really liked since all the other maternity bras she’d tried didn’t have an underwire and weren’t as supportive.

Helen had gone straight to the loosest hook on this bra, but as she is fairly late in her pregnancy now, we expect her to be able to wear it until near the birth, then be able to wear it again afterwards when she gets smaller again.

The inside of the cups was fairly interesting – it has pockets inside. Now it doesn’t explain on the site what these are for, and since no one here is an expert in maternity bras, we can’t say for sure, but we guess that these are pockets to keep pads in for milk leakage, a nice handy touch. It also explains on the box that the bra has inlying breast support, so we wondered if it might help with that too.

The feel and appearance of the bra itself is lovely. It’s very soft on the skin, which is great for those that experience extra irritation during pregnancy. The design itself is really pretty too. Helen’s pictures make the patterning on the bra much more clear than on the website – a loopy sort of floral design. I didn’t even realise that it wasn’t just plain black until she sent me the pictures! It’s perfect because it’s not too plain, but isn’t over the top. The cute design on the gore with the cut out is really modern and reminds me of the new Lulu Tout range at Figleaves. The gore doesn’t sit entirely flat on Helen, but that’s due the underwiring standing out slightly from the body for comfort purposes in pregnancy and because the cups are fairly high and full. It’s not an indication of too small cups here, as you can see that the cups encompass everything properly and lie flat at the top.

All in all, a pretty bra with modern touches that isn’t too plain, is comfortable and supportive to wear, and fits Helen perfectly. I think we got it spot on with this one!