Abstract
During pregnancy and lactation, woman breasts feel changes like blood flow increasement, associated with a higher breast temperature. We performed an exploratory study of the breast skin temperature of lactating and non-lactating women based on thermography, with a qualitative analysis of the temperature patterns and a quantitative evaluation of the differences. Frontal breast thermograms of four non-lactating young women and four women with well-established lactation were acquired and analyzed. Qualitative analysis of the images obtained show some evidence of the existence of a characteristic skin temperature pattern for lactating women. Quantitative differences between thermograms were also noticed, especially when considering dispersion metrics: lactating women present higher breast skin temperature gradients and amplitudes. Results obtained, especially based on central tendency metrics, should be interpreted with caution because some of the acquisition conditions for non-lactating women may lead to some bias on the results. Further investigation will be performed to quantify breast skin temperature gradient and be able to classify images based in the breast skin temperature pattern.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Lawrence, R.A., Lawrence, R.: Breastfeeding: A Guide for the Medical Profession. Mosby Inc., St. Louis (2006)
Geddes, D.T.: Inside the lactating breast: the latest anatomy research. J. Midwifery Women’s Health 52(6), 556–563 (2007)
Thoresen, M., Wesche, J.: Doppler measurements of changes in human mammary and uterine blood flow during pregnancy and lactation. Acta Obstet. Gynecol. Scand. 67(8), 741–745 (1988)
Kimura, C., Matsuoka, M.: Changes in breast skin temperature during the course of breastfeeding. J. Hum. Lact. 23(1), 60–69 (2007)
dos Santos Heberle, A.B., de Moura, M.A.M., de Souza, M.A., Nohama, P.: Assessment of techniques of massage and pumping in the treatment of breast engorgement by thermography. Rev. Lat. Am. Enfermagem 22(2), 277–285 2014
di Migueli, M.F., da Luz, S.C.T., dos Santos, K.M., da Silva Honório, G.J., da Roza, T.: Thermography study of nipple-areola complex in immediate puerperas. Man. Ther. Posturol. Rehabil. J. 14(48), 2236–5435 (2016)
dos Santos Heberle, A.B., Ichisato, S.M.T., Nohama, P.: Breast evaluation during lactation using thermography and pressure algometry. Acta Paul. Enferm. 28(3), 256–263 (2015)
Borchartt, T.B., Conci, A., Lima, R.C.F., Resmini, R., Sanchez, A.: Breast thermography from an image processing viewpoint: a survey. Signal Process. 93(10), 2785–2803 (2013)
Chudecka, M., Lubkowska, A.: Thermal maps of young women and men. Infrared Phys. Technol. 69, 81–87 (2015)
Fernández-Cuevas, I., et al.: Classification of factors influencing the use of infrared thermography in humans: a review. Infrared Phys. Technol. 71, 28–55 (2015)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Gouveia, A. et al. (2019). Breast Skin Temperature Evaluation in Lactating and Non-lactating Women by Thermography: An Exploratory Study. In: Tavares, J., Natal Jorge, R. (eds) VipIMAGE 2019. VipIMAGE 2019. Lecture Notes in Computational Vision and Biomechanics, vol 34. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32040-9_33
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32040-9_33
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-32039-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-32040-9
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)