Senior Nursing Officer at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, Betty Owusu Ansah, has revealed the actual story behind the world famous ‘No bra day’ commemoration.
No Bra Day is understood by many people all over the world as a day that women go braless in view of breast cancer awareness. However, Dr. Betty, speaking on eTV Ghana’s Girl Vibes, told host, Mercy Bee that the ‘bra’ in ‘No Bra Day’ was originally an acronym which meant something else.
She explained, “Before ‘No bra day’ started, there was a surgeon who was helping women going had breast cancer to have surgery done and he wanted them to do reconstructive surgery after the breasts had been taken off so that it doesn’t look so bad”.
Betty continued that at the time, the women in Toronto did not agree to have this reconstructive surgery, hence, “He created this acronym ‘BRA’ meaning Breast Reconstructive Awareness day because he wanted to create the awareness that even though your breasts have been taken off, you can still go through reconstructive surgery to have it looking better than it dos without the breast”.
According to the senior nurse, this is how the whole ‘BRA’ word came about, however, some years later, one woman named Anastasia Donald saw that acronym and decided to develop something out of it and that is how she brought about the ‘No bra day’ celebration.
“This was to create awareness that breast cancer still exists and to encourage women to go braless so that they can take that opportunity to do self-breast examination for identification of lumps or abnormalities in the breasts and also to detect breast cancer at the early stage”, she further educated.
No bra day is an annual observance slated for October 13th, where women are encouraged to go braless as a means to championing breast cancer awareness.
By: Maureen Dedei Quaye