One of the biggest fears that women have when we are pregnant and we have decided to feed the baby with breast milk is to suffer from cracks or mastitis. In my case I did not suffer from the first but yes I started to develop the dreaded swelling of the mammary glands in one of my breasts.
According to my midwife, there are more and more cases of breast engorgement (much more than a few years ago), and the reason is still unknown. Fortunately she helped me solve the problem in a very effective way, so Today I tell you what were your instructions to relieve pain, reduce swelling and solve the problem definitely.
What were the first symptoms?
The first thing I felt and what made me suspect that I was developing mastitis was the inflammation of the chest. When I felt I felt a kind of very hard lumps that were also annoying. What I did at that time was to take a hot shower to see if it was relieved, but it didn't really work for me.
The next day I noticed a reddened area (like a kind of circle near the nipple). The area was also quite hot, as if it had a localized fever.
What advice did the midwife give me?
When I went to his office, he surprised me with his first advice, which he pronounced even before checking my chest: 'The best breast pump you can use is your baby'. After having gone through this and with a fully established breastfeeding despite having given birth by caesarean section, I must say that he was absolutely right.
His instructions were to perform a massage, put on dry heat with a hot water bottle just before breastfeeding my baby (I still remember how it was with the bag in my chest in the middle of July with the temperatures we had in Madrid), and Always start the shot with the affected chest to completely empty it.
The treatment should complement it with some probiotics that prescribed me (called Lactanza Hereditum) and I had to take a capsule in the morning for 30 days. These are not covered by social security and are not cheap, but given the result I suppose it is worth trying.
The procedure to do the massage is very simple: you just have to apply a little oil, make a circular movement around the chest with the knuckles (in a soft, clear way) and then repeat it from the inside towards the nipple, as if we wanted to help the glands expel milk.
The result I noticed from the first time I followed his instructions, as the packages went down and the areas that were red too. If it had not been for the heat that was going through being in the middle of summer, it would have been a moment of relaxation.
After the procedure I also noticed that my baby was sucking better. Then I realized that those lumps I noticed are also annoying for them, since they make suction difficult. The best thing is that after a few days I had a completely normal chest.
The most important thing: do not stop breastfeeding
If you think you are developing a mastitis, it is best to see a doctor to make sure there is no infection. Of course, it also helps to be informed, since cases like the one we met recently in which a poorly treated mastitis had to extract half a liter of pus from the chest of a woman, but the most important thing is to keep in mind that The more the baby sucks, the cleaner the ducts will have and the less chance we will have of having a bigger problem.
