Breastfeeding

Breastfeeding went better today.  I’m still having some burning and shooting pains in my breasts, especially when they’ve leaked and I need to change the Lansinoh pads sooner.  I have to grimace when the baby latches on, but then it becomes more bearable.  I hope this gets better soon.  It was so lovely getting over the mastitis, that time in between seems blissful now.  I’m just going to hang in there and be grateful nothing is affecting my baby.  That’s all for today, I’m tired and the little guy was quite the fussbucket today ;)  I love my little man!

I always imagined that breastfeeding would be the easiest and most natural thing in the world. Even though I researched *everything* when I was pregnant, and read about issues like Mastitis, I never thought that I would be the one to get them. After all, babies are meant to breastfeed.

I had a c-section so I was *lucky enough* to get to spend 4 days in the hospital. This was a blessing in disguise because I had a lactation consultant available to me literally at all hours. Even with all of this help and support, my baby had some latching issues, and I didn’t know enough to fix his latch. They told me it should never hurt, even so I wouldn’t break my baby’s latch. (That is the piece of advice I really want to broadcast to the world…if it hurts, break the baby’s latch, otherwise you’re in for it

My nipples developed milk blisters and it looked like chunks had been taken out in certain places. I’m very proud of myself that I never even considered giving up. It hurt, but it was bearable at this point.

My milk came in pretty early, about 3 days after giving birth. This was exciting for me! I really think the realization that I would be providing the nutrients for my baby’s health, growth, and development got me through. We went home on day 4. Me with sore nipples, but so determined to do the right thing.

A couple days later I got engorged. The right side wasn’t so bad, but the left side seemed like it had *grown* about 8 sizes. It was sore and throbbing. Then I started to feel freezing cold. It was the middle of August, in a house with only window units, so I knew something must be wrong. I took my temperature, and it wasn’t too high, but enough to warrant a call to my OB. He had me come in to the office right away to make sure I didn’t have another problem, and determined that I had Mastitis.

Mastitis is an infection in the breast that usually occurs because of a plugged milk duct that gets infected. It is very sore and painful, and can look like a red arrow sort of pointing to the nipple in the infected area. That’s what mine looked like. I took that round of antibiotics and felt *ok* within a couple of days. However, I was having other problems as well and ended up getting a UTI. By this point, I was very stressed and not feeling well at all, plus having had the c-section I was in poor shape. I wanted to be able to do everything and feel good for my baby, it just wasn’t happening.

About a week later, the Mastitis returned in full force and I was on a second round of antibiotics. Finally, it and my UTI was cleared up and I was able to breastfeed with much less pain and discomfort.

The moral of this story is, I feel that my Mastitis could have been prevented if I had taken the simple advice to break my baby’s latch if it ever became painful. If you are constantly experiencing pain when your baby nurses, something is wrong and you need to check latch, positioning, or a combination of the two. Another mistake I had been making was using the same position to feed the baby all the time. We used the cross cradle hold ALL the time. His latch wasn’t developed enough to suck efficiently at that point, so using other positions would have helped him drain the milk ducts. I was lucky that my boughts of Mastitis did not cause extreme fever or other problems.

What Helped Me

• Do not let your breasts get too engorged
• If you are having an oversupply try block feeding (feeding on 1 side only for as long as the baby wants to nurse within a specified period, i.e. 2 hours block, 4 hour block, etc.)
• Breastfeed frequently enough to empty the milk ducts, but be careful to not build up an oversupply if you have this problem.
• Get plenty of rest!
• Try different positions.
• Do NOT stop nursing, this will make the problem worse, and won’t be good for your baby.
• Massage the tender area.
• If you feel that you have developed Mastitis-SEE A DOCTOR! Antibiotics may be in order

See Dr. Sears for more information