Weaning when you are prone to mastitis

[WinkyTwinglet]

Hi,

I was hoping for some help from anyone who has been in a similar situation...

My baby is 4.5 months old and I have exclusively breastfed until now. I am very prone to blocked ducts and the slightest change in feeding brings on a problem. I usually clear this with a lot of hard work, using techniques I read about on this site.

I went back to work a month ago and express 3 times per day to mimic my babies feeding pattern. After 3 days, my baby got a bad cold, changed his eating pattern, and I ended up with a bad case of mastitis. Just managed to escape hospital admission and, thankfully, it cleared with a lot of hard work and heavy antibiotics.

This got better, however, four weeks later, I went back to work for a full week and, again, I have got mastitis.

Giving up work is not an option, so I am going to have to scale down the breastfeeding.

BUT I am now very wary of decreasing feeds, due to the mastitis experiences, and was wondering how anyone in a similar situation had successfully negotiated this.

Many thanks for your help.

WT

Hi, I did. It took more than a month to slowly decreased the BF and to finally stop. Just skip one feed at a time and wait for it to settle. My MW advised to drink sage tea (about a litre/day) to decreased the milk supply. I remember you could also eat a lot of parsley (tabouleh style salads) and there was some other herbs/tea you could take (you could check on a health site). I did like the taste of the sage though and it is the most efficient.
My mastitis were due more to my sleeping position than the irregular feeding pattern of my baby though (which didn't help).
I think if it is very bad though you could get some medicine from your GP or MW to cut the milk supply? I would call your MW if she is sympathetic (I know in the UK some are just really bad at that part of their job)
Good luck

I too am very prone to mastitis and blocked ducts but I found that once my supply dropped quite a bit (when he got into solids in a big way), i didn't have any more problems. I know that's different to your situation as your baby is younger but you may well find if you mix feed with just a couple of bfs a day you might not have any more problems. Getting there is difficult I know but try the tips about sage etc - kellymom.com has more info I think.
Try and do it gradually, but if you do get mastitis again, it tends to reduce your supply so it might get you where you want to be (though not in the way you want obviously!)
Hope that makes sense

Thank you both very much for your advice. Your replies have made me feel better and a bit more in control. It's been such an uphill battle with the bf and after doing hot packs etc and being in pain in the middle of the night, I lost hope a bit and posted. I'm going to stock up on sage tea :)