Why are there pains when breastfeeding?

2023 Author: Alfred Shackley | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-21 13:14

For a baby, breastfeeding is very important - from mother's milk, the baby receives not only vitamins and minerals necessary for its development, but also immunity! When the baby is at the nipple, the woman gets pleasant emotions, she is overwhelmed by tenderness for her own creation, the emotional connection - the mother-child is strengthened.

It happens that the idyll is disturbed by very unpleasant sensations - breastfeeding turns into torture, because it hurts. It is dangerous to ignore this symptom - you can miss the development of serious pathological processes in the mammary gland.

So what to do if your breast hurts while feeding!

Causes of the unpleasant condition

Why does my chest hurt before or after breastfeeding?

In the early days, painful sensations and distension in the mammary glands can be explained by natural causes - a rush of milk. If the child does not have time to empty the "milk storage" in full or the ducts in the nipples are not sufficiently developed, clogged milk lobules can provoke lactostasis. Lactostasis is stagnation of milk in separate lobules, which is easy to notice on palpation. In the initial stage, individual dense nodules in the mammary gland are felt. This phenomenon cannot be ignored - lactostasis can turn into mastitis in a matter of hours.

Mastitis is an acute inflammation of the mammary gland, its symptoms: acute pain, enlargement of the lymph glands in the axillary tissue, redness, induration, difficulty in the outflow of milk, fever.

Its purulent form, which occurs when a secondary infection, mainly staphylococci, penetrates through the ducts, has additional signs - purulent discharge from the nipples, general intoxication, high temperature.

Breast hurts after feeding if:

• the baby is too energetic, and after his bites, cracks appeared on the nipples;
• milk arrives immediately after the sucking process and causes distension;
• the baby sucks out little milk.

Breast pain during feeding due to the irregular shape of the nipples or because the woman does not properly attach the baby to them. Sometimes a woman herself is to blame for the fact that she has pain - she, delighted with the increase in the bust, begins to "force" in inappropriate underwear, pulling them off the mammary gland.

In this case, it causes stagnation artificially, unnaturally lifting the breast. During lactation, the mammary gland is subject to the negative effects of external factors. The inflammatory process is caused by hypothermia, minimal physical influences can lead to injury.

Elimination of lactostasis

To eliminate lactostasis, you should completely free the breast from milk after the baby has eaten. If he does not completely empty the breast, then you need to resort to pumping.

You can express yourself manually or with a breast pump. Modern machines for expressing breast milk do not damage the nipples - they have soft suction cups. You should buy a more convenient model for yourself. Before expressing, you need to learn how to massage the mammary glands - then it will be possible to completely free the breast from milk and remove the lump.

The mammary glands are warmed with a warm towel soaked in hot water for 3-5 minutes, then massaged in a circular motion from the base to the nipple in a circle, especially carefully kneading the places of stagnation. The massage should be absolutely painless. After the lumps disappear, the breasts may still hurt for 48 hours.

It is impossible to carry out warming procedures with the help of alcohol compresses or heating with sand or salt - such actions can aggravate the general condition.

If pumping and massage do not help, the breast still hurts while feeding and, in addition, the temperature rises, most likely mastitis has developed.

Treatment of mastitis

As soon as the first signs of mastitis appear, you should immediately consult a doctor. The disease at an early stage can be cured without resorting to surgery.

Lactational mastitis is not a contraindication for breastfeeding and should be continued. As with lactostasis, after each feeding, you should try to empty the breast completely. After feeding and pumping, a cool compress is applied to the breast.

If you need to make a compress from medicinal substances - the most often used solution for resorption of seals is a solution of dimethyl sulfoxide - before the procedure, they express as much milk as the baby needs for nutrition.

You will have to skip one feeding after the compress, and express the milk again. In the acute form of the disease, antibiotic therapy may be required - in this case, the doctor prescribes such medicines that will not harm the baby and dissolve minimally in milk. If you correctly draw up a regimen for taking medications - for example, take a pill right after the baby is full - then by the next feeding there will be a minimum amount of antibiotic in the milk.

The ban on feeding - only acute purulent mastitis. In this case, surgery and tissue excision in the area of compacted inflamed ducts are most often required.

Nipple treatment

Treatment is prescribed depending on the reasons why the nipples hurt when breastfeeding. If inflammation and cracking was provoked by the unsuccessful shape of the nipples - they are too small or very flat, it is inconvenient for the baby to suck, then special nozzles made of silicone or latex are applied to the nipples. In addition, before each breastfeeding, the woman massages the nipples, pulls them off. After a while, they will take the shape the child needs.

Cracks also occur in such cases:

• when the baby is incorrectly applied to the breast;
• the nipple is pulled out of the mouth forcibly when the baby clamps the jaw, prevents it from being torn away from the "feeding trough".

The following factors provoke the appearance of irritation of the tender halos of the mammary glands:

• improper care of the mammary gland - overdrying with detergents, rubbing with linen

  or a hard towel;

• increased dryness of the skin;
• incorrect expression;
• hypervitaminosis or vitamin deficiency;
• thrush in the mouth of a child.

Sometimes cracks occur in women who feed already "matured" babies with teeth - in this case, the child injures the nipple by biting it.

You should not stop breastfeeding with cracks in the nipples, if a purulent-inflammatory process does not develop. Breast pads - as with uncomfortable nipples - will help get rid of the problem.

Treatment of nipples is carried out according to the following algorithm.

The halos are washed with an antiseptic - potassium permanganate or chamomile decoction, then lotions from sea buckthorn oil or an oil solution of vitamin A, Solcoseryl gel are applied. For washing, you can use "Bepanten" - the drug simultaneously has an anti-inflammatory and wound healing effect, there are no contraindications for use with breastfeeding.

Compresses from an oil solution of "Chlorophyllipt" accelerate the healing of the nipples. At night - when the child is asleep, synthomycin or furacillin ointment can be applied to the halos. Before attaching the baby to the breast, the nipples are thoroughly washed with boiled water and then with breast milk. By the way, the last remedy itself is an effective antiseptic.

Prevention of lactation problems

To prevent breast pain when feeding a baby, it is necessary to prepare the mammary glands already in the third trimester of pregnancy. The nipples are strengthened with the help of contrasting water procedures, the nipples are rubbed to make them harden.

Before feeding, the breasts are washed without soap so that the skin does not dry out, and they are blotted with paper

towel. After feeding, the nipple should dry itself - being absorbed, the milk restores the water-fat balance of the skin.

The baby should be fed on demand, not kept at the breast for a long time.

Better 2 feedings for 10 minutes than one half hour, when the baby falls asleep from fatigue, gums clamping the nipple. It is necessary from the first days to correctly apply and take the breast from the baby.

The nipple should be fully grasped, with part of the areola. If you need to remove the breast from the baby's mouth, press on the nipple so that air enters the baby's mouth and the vacuum dissipates.

When a woman is attentive to herself, prepares her breasts for feeding in advance, observes hygiene and technical rules of feeding, she will not have to face a problem - pain during lactation. When breastfeeding, she will experience only positive emotions.