GRAPHIC: Has part of my nipple fallen off?

[bfissues]

I was just feeding my week old baby and noticed a bit of blood around his mouth. I took him off and this was on the end of my nipple, sticking out. My nipple is damaged and bleeding but the area of damage looks smaller than this. Is there anything this could be other than part of my nipple?

During my traumatic bteastfeeding days I was having a long soak in the bath and 2 pieces of organic material like in your pic floated to the top of the water

@tumon could be right, some babies get a sort of callous on their top lip that harmlessly breaks away now and again. Coupled with a bit of your blood that could be it?
There was hardly any sign of where the callous was when it breaks away, it will reform or possibly not?

I'd forgotten about the blister/callous that babies can get on their lip. Dd used to have one. It's definitely not that though because I haven't seen one on ds.
I've had NHS bf support here and they keep saying latch is ok. We do struggle to latch though. Nipple pain is ok at the moment but discomfort from his tongue moving (on my breast not nipple) is almost unbearable and a shield didn't make it feel any better.
There's an NCT bf support group tomorrow so I'll go along to that too.

@AnyFucker

Latch is NOT ok if you have plain while feeding please seek more support. Didn't they watch a whole feed? Baby latch on, full feed and fall off the breast? This is the only way to fully assess if baby is feeding correctly. I used to be a breastfeeding supporter and while my knowledge isn't up to date these are the basics.
You may get some better support from the NCT group if their breastfeeding council it's their or they should be able to point you in the right direction.

@MigGril pain is occasionally when I first latch him on but doesn't last longer than 10-20 seconds. I struggle to get him latched because he just gets angry when I hold him as if I'm going to latch him (cross cradle, rugby ball, laid back - it doesn't seem to make a difference). It didn't hurt when this thing came off/out either. I still don't really know what it was. The sensation I'm struggling with is his tongue on my breast (breast tissue not nipple). It's almost unbearable, particularly on one side but isn't painful as such. It goes through me though.

By the time they are a toddler and standing on one leg with one arm in the air, or trying to turn over with a nipple still in their mouth stretching it out to about two centimetres, there is not much feeling left. This is not much consolation though when it hurts like hell at the beginning. So much we did mixed feeding and gave each breast s 12 hour rest to recover.

Ok could be a number of different things, from just needing the latch changing slightly, you feeling let down to baby having tounge tie. But only seeing a feed from some who's trained will help.

In the mean time and as you say baby is getting upset when you try and latch him on. Google biological nurturing, laid back breastfeeding it often works really well in the early days.