To feel trapped by breastfeeding j

[Monkeynuts18]

My baby is 7 months old. I’ve had mastitis 3 times since Christmas - twice in February. Weirdly I didn’t get it in the first few months, although I’ve always been prone to blocked ducts.

The GPs don’t seem overly bothered, they just prescribe antibiotics each time which seem to help, until it rears its ugly head again.

The GP I saw today told me that ‘you may as well just stop breastfeeding now, that will sort it.’

I don’t particularly want to stop. I wanted to make it to a year. But I can’t deal with being laid up in bed every few weeks with a fever and chills. It’s not fair on my baby or my husband. I’d rather stop breastfeeding than suffer like this every few weeks.

But the thing is, you can’t ‘just stop’ breastfeeding! I’ll get more mastitis, surely? Haven’t I got to do it really gradually anyway? I feel really trapped!

Has anyone else been in this position? Any advice would be gratefully received. What should I do?

Please don’t trap yourself with made up targets like carrying on until your baby is 12 months. If the time is right and your health is suffering then just stop now.

If you’re prone to mastitis then I would do it gradually. Maybe dropping one feed every couple of weeks.

Will your baby take cows milk or formula from a cup or bottle? They still need a fair amount of milk until they’re 12+ months.

You might find it helpful visit a breastfeeding drop in or call the national breastfeeding helpline. They should be able to either advise you on continuing without getting mastitis frequently or advise you on stopping if that’s what you want.

Heya.bless you, mastitis is horrid how awful for you that you have had it 3 times. I wouldn't stop cold turkey to be honest cos you could open yourself up for problems esp If you are prone to mastitis just my opinion but it's totally your decision if you do stop I would do as another poster suggested and gradually reduce feeds, have you started weaning your little one to solids ?you will start to naturally produce less milk once they start taking more solids anyway so may be easier. Please don't put pressure on yourself to carry on til a year if you feel it would benefit you best to stop. you have already given your baby an excellent start :) at the same time if you want to carry on don't let other people pressure you to stop if you don't want to. Best wishes xx

Can you get to a breast feeding group & see if latch is okay?

GP’s are notoriously crap about breastfeeding. If you’re getting repeated Mastitis there’s definitely an issue going on.

There’s no tongue or lip tie? Checked by a tongue tie professional?

Really try a group, as they are really helpful & if you want to stop, they’ll have the best advice to stop gradually too. So a feed at time.

I went through this and I stopped cold turkey. It was very painful for about 4 days, I wouldn't recommend it. Try and wean off slowly if you can.
Well done for getting so far with it, breast feeding is fucking hard and the fact that there is so much pressure on women to do it is not followed through with a lot of support in the real world.

Bless you, I hated and doggedly carried on a bit longer than I really should have. Some excellent suggestions. If you really want to carry on I’d speak to some other HCP other than GP as like others have said. They tend to be a bit rubbish with anything mum and baby. Have a look at your local b feeding derives as others have said.

If you’ve never had mastitis before and now you’ve had it three times in a short space of time it’s possible that it’s just not being treated effectively ie it’s one case of mastitis that has never been properly dealt with.

www.llli.org/breastfeeding-info/mastitis/

It looks like you should be being given 10-14 days of a specific antibiotic

cks.nice.org.uk/mastitis-and-breast-abscess#!scenario

There’s info here but it looks like it

Sorry, it looks like it’s not a good idea to stop suddenly as that increases the risk of breast abscesses, so do get expert advice if you want to go that route.

I’ve never had mastitis despite BFing four children but I’m sure there must be an underlying reason for this to keep occurring? Could you perhaps contact your local breastfeeding support group for advice?

GP’s can be useless with this sort of thing as can health visitors.

@Monkeynuts18

Just stop breastfeeding now. Although breastfeeding is great (if you can do it,) there is really no need to breastfeed them past 6 months old.

Why suffer and make yourself miserable? Not going to be much fun for baby if mummy is unhappy and stressed.

If you're passionate about breastfeeding, it's worth fully investigating what's going wrong here. I managed to get mastitis five times within a couple of months with my second child, and you have my full sympathy - it's bloody awful! And yes, my DH had to work from home or just take time off to help each terrible day before the antibiotics kicked in and I was in pain and hallucinating. Anyway, I persevered (despite a GP telling me to stop) because breastfeeding is so important to us all. Also, I'd breastfed my daughter for 18 months so I felt fairly confident that something was wrong this time around. Both my children had tongue tie, which we had sorted, but my son's was worse, and combined with a high palate and insatiable appetite, his latch was dreadful. I pestered Health Visitors until I got a referral to a lactation consultant, who sat with me and DS for an hour to explore latching issues. I also visited a local breastfeeding café, and found La Leche and a local breastfeeding group to be really helpful. Long story short, we got through it! He's now 16 months and still feeding well.

You need to find a solution that works best for you all. So if you do decide to stop, I still recommend visiting the services I mentioned above to get advice on how to wean gently. Sadly it can take effort to find truly knowledgeable breastfeeding support, the lack of training and level of ignorance in the UK is shocking.

Yanbu

You could try dropping a feed every couple of days? I wouldn’t drop one feed every few weeks, that would take forever.
Will baby take a bottle of formula?

OP AIBU is the worst place for a post about breastfeeding! Head over the the infant feeding section for some more practical advice.

even if you 'make it to a year', if baby still wants an evening feed and won't take a bottle, you'll find yourself trapped for even longer.

start getting your baby used to a bottle (or even a sippy cup) of warm milk now so that you have options.

If you want to keep breastfeeding please see another doctor or a breastfeeding specialist. And ignore people like the above poster who say there is no benefit past 6 months, they are wrong!!

I had a really painful bleb on one nipple, I did everything I could for it, hot flannel, a little squeeze, pumped but couldnt shift it. I looked online and it said a dr could possible cut it or put a pin in safely. My Male (I feel its relevent) dr told me to stop breastfeeding, dd was only 8m and I didnt want to, he said he wouldn't do anything about it and maybe it was a sign I stop. I was so so cross. I went home and cut it myself, luckily there was no infection or anything.

Thankfully I never had mastitis! Whether you want to stop breastfeeding is your decision, but it’s definitely don’t do it cold turkey

I weaned my DD off breastfeeding from around 6 months because I was just over it. I dropped a feed every few days. And of course she was naturally eating more food and feeding less anyway. I think I kept up the first morning feed for a few weeks as it didn’t bother me too much, but she was fully on formula by 8 months.

My DD was used to bottles and formula though as we’d always done one bottle feed a day. Hopefully your baby is on board with the change

Can you contact La Leche league UK ? They were a tremendous support or NCT Breast Counsellors .GPs dont always "get it" If you want to continue to a year or so it seems a shame if you cant .

I had this when breastfeeding my Dt. I'd been fine with ds. The breastfeeding support said it was due to reduction in feed as I weaned them. The advice was to express a few ounces off every time they reduced a feed. I still wanted to continue feeding (I had this thing I should get to 18 months as that's how long I fed ds for). In the end I compromised fed reduced feeds and added in cows milk. I managed to 14 months when I got another bout of mastitis and stopped soon after I could nolonger go through the pain. You know when the pain /ill health is not worth the benefit if it's now get some advice to do it safely, if you really want to continue get some advice and also think about doing mixed feeding.

I was prone to Mastitis, 6 times in the 3.5 years I nursed. It is possible to continue I found constantly checking boobs for lumps, doing hard massages and hot showers helped prevent it from developing.

Do you have a local peer support organisation? Ours was vital to our breastfeeding journey and they had so much more knowledge and experience than health visitors etc... If you want to keep going they should be able to advise you.

Also to the really helpful person saying it has no benefits after 6 months, please inform yourself before giving advice.

Is your baby eating solids quite well? I got it a couple of times around the same time and it's because I wasnt dropping feeds as I should have been when my baby was eating more solids. I was offering about 5 feeds a day I think and she still wanted it, but in hindsight wasn't that hungry and wasnt fully draining the breast. I always found it was better to feed less often and fully drain the breast, than do little and often, in terms of mastitis.

Maybe you need to tweak the feeding schedule to drop a feed, and increase the time between the feed and the last meal or snack so the baby is properly hungry?