Hellobee Boards

@foodiebee: this sounds so difficult but want to cheer you in for keeping at it It sounds like one or more clogged ducts to me. Do you have a hand pump, by any chance? Sometimes people say those work better for resolving. I’m sure others will weigh in with good advice on this but I thought of this Lucies list article whereshe talks about it, she apparently got them a lot. Hopefully this link works:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwia7sPRjZHjAhVHHs0KHfkcCWgQzPwBegQIARAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lucieslist.com%2Fnewsletter%2Fpostpartum-week-8-3-big-nasties-nursing%2F&psig=AOvVaw0yQ3euwBYhvpT_1W6JW1hC&ust=1561980687644209

The other thing that saved me for pain was after the salt water nip bath (sea salt and HOT water in a shot glass)—cover your nipples in lanolin. My favorite brand of lanolin is the one by Medela, but use real lanolin, not that earth mama angel baby butter bullshit. Use a ton, like you are frosting a cupcake. This saved my relationship with breastfeeding. I did it like 10-12x a day. It was pretty much all I did for a couple weeks. But then I came out the other side and it was fine.

And IMO if you need to supplement, don’t feel bad! Breast isn’t best, fed is best. I supplemented with my first baby in the beginning, did a couple months ebf, went back to supplementing at 3 months, and continued to breast feed and pump until he turned 1. Any combination that works for you and keeps you sane is fine. You’re doing great even though it’s toe-curling miserable pain it’ll get better.

Sounds like a clogged duct. I was very prone to them and hated them with a passion. It is important to get the clog worked out as quickly as you can, as otherwise it can lead to mastitis (not trying to scare you, just a heads up because mastitis sucks).

Here are a few things I learned:

1) People will recommend sunflower lecithin. Try it, it may help you. I unfortunately had a bad GI reaction to it - later learned a couple of other bees had as well - but it took me awhile to realize that was the culprit and so I spent a couple of weeks with horrible stomach pain. After that, I used soy lecithin instead - which is very similar - and only when I had a clog (rather than as a daily preventative), and it was fine. So definitely try it to help get the clogs out, but just be aware that can be a side effect.

2) Heat will help. You may want to even sleep with a heating pad for the first couple of hours at night. Put heat on it before trying to work it out.

3) Hand express like crazy in a hot shower. I know it's so, so painful, ugh, but I realized with time that the best bet was to be really aggressive with hand expressing. And keep persisting at it until milk was shooting out everywhere.

4) In addition to a clogged duct, it could be a clogged pore on your nipple that's gotten gunked up with milk. Dissolve some Epsom salt on a hot washcloth, stick in in your bra for a few minutes, and then gently exfoliate. If it's a clogged pore, this should help.

5) I never found vibrating an electric toothbrush on the clog to be that helpful, but some people have luck using this approach to break it up.

6) Often the only thing that worked was dangle nursing repeatedly. That is when you lay the baby on their back, get on all fours on top of them, and shove the breast in their mouth from that angle. I hated it, but gravity really does help.

7) For me, pumping just made it worse. I needed my LO to get it out. He did not like taking the breast with the clog because not much was coming out, but I had to be persistent, as I needed him to get it out so I wouldn't get mastitis!

8) Clogs are caused by your breast not being fully emptied after each feed. I was getting horrible ones nearly daily until we fixed my LO's tongue tie at 11 weeks. After that it got a lot better, but I still got them periodically, as I think he was never super great at emptying my breasts. Probably your LO has not yet learned how to effectively use the new range of motion in her tongue, and it should get better with time. Also definitely schedule a follow up with the IBCLC because the tongue tie won't always be fully corrected on the first go (most likely it's fixed now, but better safe than sorry).

9) The only pump that was not a disaster for me with clogs is the Spectra. I learned from the IBCLC that this is very common, and most women who have issues with clogs respond better to the spectra. Switching to it from a Medala one was also a game changer. Not something you need to worry about after one clog, but just a heads up in case its relevant later....

I'm sorry it is so difficult and painful. I really struggled for the first few months, but am still breastfeeding my 17 month old and now love, love, love it - the snuggles are the best. And haven't had a clog since around 12 months when we moved to just feeding at wakeup and bedtime Definitely don't mean to suggest that it's always best to push through and breastfeed for an extended period, but just to say that a rough start does not mean it will stay that way....

It's a clogged duct. Resolve it now before it turns into mastitis. What I did is hop in a really hot shower and roughly massage it. Think a 13 year old getting to cop a feel for the first time. Then get a haaka pump and suction it on as you nurse on the good side. Then switch to the bad side and massage it while he nurses. Every 10 minutes really massage the bad side until milk comes out. My electric pump was worthless, but the haaka was great.

If you don't get it resolved today, the threat of mastitis is bad enough that one of the single best ways to resolve it is to have your partner suck on it. That grossed me out, but I was tandem feeding my 2 year old and he was able to resolve the clogs way better than my newborn.

Mastitis is seriously the worst thing ever, so if your breast starts getting red and streaky or you get a fever, call your OB/MW right away.

And you're doing great, even if it doesn't feel like it right now. By 6 weeks it gets so much easier. That may seem like an eternity right now, but the hardest part is behind you.

@foodiebee: That's awesome! TMI maybe, but once I asked my DH to help because I was really desperate, and it did absolutely nothing. He was like, "I'm trying as hard as I can", but somehow was not even getting any suction. Probably because he was completely grossed out by the prospect

Also, supplementing was the best thing for our bf relationship. I've supplemented since 2 months, and it would have been better for everyone if I'd done it sooner. Even now, LO gets a cup of cow's milk at bedtime in addition to bf (my supply is pathetic). Like, I made my life really difficult by not doing it initially, and then everything was so much easier with absolutely zero negative consequences.

@LCTBQE: Clogged ducts were the absolute bane of my existence. Like when I think back to what sucked about the newborn days, for me it's clogged ducts. And dangle nursing