In pain breast feeding

[pennylee]

My 8 day old son is having a MAJOR melt down because I took him off the breast after 30 mins due to the pain being unbearable! I feel like somthing under my breast is about to snap as he tugs on it with each gulp. I'm getting over the nipple pain and the engorgement has gone. This pain now is truly something I feel I can't work through but I want to fix it so but can't figure out what's causing the pain. I'm pretty sure the latch is right but it feels really bruised where his lower jaw sits just under the areola. Please help!!!!!!!!!

When DS comes off the breast does your nipple look nipple shaped (perhaps elongated) or does it look like a lipstick, a bullet, with a ridge running around it or changes colour (purple/white)?

Lipstick and no colour change. Is that good?

Sorry, yes and elongated...

No colour change is good but lipstick shape indicates that the latch isn't as deep as it could be.

The change in shape is down to baby's tongue squashing the nipple against the hard palate rather than the nipple being all the way back at the soft palate (if you run your tongue over the roof of your mouth the nipple should hit the bit where it goes from hard to fleshy - this is quite far back in the mouth).

You can try doing what's called an exaggerated latch - basically the chin touches the breast first then the lower lip, nipple in mouth (pointing up to the roof of the mouth rather than straight down the throat), then upper lip. Lips should be flared (like fish lips!) and cheeks soft and rounded when suckling (no sucking in of the cheeks).

This is an animation of an exaggerated latch (page is in Russian so don't think your computer has crashed). Have a look at these too - particularly Good Drinking & Really Good Drinking.

HTH

Wow, really helpful. I've realised that if he isn't latched on brilliantly, I still let him go for it if I can hear him swallowing. I still feel like something is about to snap though.

It might be down to the suckling - it's harder for baby to get milk out if the latch isn't great so they can often respond by sucking even harder (and making more pain for mum as they do so).

Having said that latching and re-latching loads and loads isn't great either so if you have latched baby on a couple of times and the latch is ok but not fantastic it might be worth leaving it rather than re-latching 10 times to get the textbook perfect latch (plus some babies get more and more frantic when they keep getting their dinner whisked away just as they start eating!).

Hope you have a better night and the pain eases up. Don't forget you can take the usual doses of paracetamol and ibuprofen whilst bfing (assuming you can ordinarily take either of them) if you need to have some pain relief.

I had something that sounds similar - I remember thinking something was going to snap in there.

Now I never found out what it was but I also had deep breast pain (ie pain in the actual main bit of the breast not near the nipple) on the same side so went to get help (ds few weeks older than yours). Two different bf counsellors told me this was likely to be due to inadequate removal of milk so when I felt the tugging I should unlatch him and re-latch until it didn't feel tuggy. This worked after a few days and I had no probs after that (still feeding him at 17 months).

Have you got a bf support group you could go to? Search here.

Even when latched correctly something still seems to be pulling. It feels abnormal.

Will contact bf support group tomorrow. Hope I get through the night!

Thanks everyone

penny - at the risk of being too intrusive - did you have flat nipples post baby? Sometimes the drawing out of the nipple can pull on the nipple supporting ligaments and hurt until they get used to the action.

Just an idea.