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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

Stopped BF and now very engorged- Mastitis?

1 reply

Redhead77 · 06/02/2011 19:33

10 month old DD2 was EBF until a couple of weeks ago. Just before christmas the little minx decided that my right boob was not as delicious as the left and would turn her nose up at it, and get positively furious if I pressed the matter. So I've had no milk in my poor wizened right boob for a while now and decided enough was enough of my lopsidedness and managed to get her on the bottle through dropping a BF every few days- I really didn't rush it as I've always made so much milk I knew I'd risk engorgement if I wasn't careful. She had her last BF feed about a week ago and things were fine for a few days. I was slowly deflating nicely.

Friday, out of the blue my breast became really engorged and painful so I rang the doctor. I couldn't get an appointment but she prescribed anti inflamatory drugs and antibiotics over the phone, just in case it got worse over the weekend. Later when I finally had the time to properly examine myself I found blueberry sized lumps around my nipple (lovely, just what I've always wanted). I managed to pretty much get rid of them with a hot flannel and lots of massaging, but it's 48 hours later and it's still really really sore and engorged.

I stupidly held off taking the antibiotics until today, so I know it'll be a while before I see any effects from them, but I would have thought the anti-infalamatory drugs would have done something more?

I feel generally under the weather, headachey, sick....fed up!!! Does anyone have any pearls of wisdom? Is this the beginning of mastitis (I know that this is a walk in the park compared to full-blown mastitis). No red marks by the way, which I hear is a symptom.

I'm just very confused because if I was still BFing I'd be draining the breast. I don't have a breast pump and would rather not start expressing anyway unless it's a last resort?! I hated expressing with DS1 and so avoided it like the plague this time round. Anything else I can do?

Sorry to ramble. A throbbing breast is not the best to aid to concentration!

OP posts:
japhrimel · 06/02/2011 19:40

Ice packs. And I think you will have to drain the breast TBH. Anti-inflammatories can't get rid of the milk build-up.

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