advice re. really painful and full breast.

[aydiddlydee]

my gorgeous new arrival is now 3 days old. Feeding had been going really well and she took to it like a pro!
However today my milk supply has definitely come in and my right breast is very hard and painful right up into my armpit. I want to express some off to get relief but I would be concerned that being so early in establishing feeding this would only make matters worse.

what would you do?

[minipie]

Feed as much as you can - your baby's suck is best thing to clear any blockages and it means none is wasted. If she's not interested, then definitely express a little off. Only enough to get the edge off, but do make sure you get your breast softish again and massage up into the armpit. Hot bath or hot flannels are helpful to soothe and make it easier to express a bit. It's more important to prevent blockages and mastitis than to worry about affecting supply.

in the meantime be extra careful about not wearing tight or underwired bras, don't sleep on front, etc. just until things calm down a bit.

it's great that feeding is going well

[aydiddlydee]

thanks so much. I successfully breastfed my other 2 DC but didn't experience anything like this so early on.
X

[Chocolateteabag]

Yep definitely massage it to soften out the lumpy bits and encourage feeding as much as you can.
I found my milk came in much quicker and faster with ds2. In the first few weeks my let down was like a power jet

Make sure you have lots of breast pads in stock!

[Writerwannabe83]

I had problems attaching baby to my left breast and as a result, by day 3 my breast was rock hard and I was expressing colostrum and I knew the hardness was probably exacerbating the problem of difficulty in latching. I got about 15mls off really easily, I was very surprised and it was instant relief - baby then actually had a good feed off that side a few hours later.

Baby is now 5 days old and I'm still hand expressing from my left breast at times purely to relieve the hardness - it's feel very strange having random lumpy bits in my breast! Thankfully baby's attachment to that breast is improving so I'm hoping that within a few days I won't have to hand express any more as him feeding will be much more effective milk flow will be much better.