Initial latch excruciating (R only)... help!

[katiegolightly]

Sigh... another breastfeeding hurdle with my 3 week old!

The initial latch on the right side only is excruciating for a minute or so. (Enough to make me scream in pain!) There is no pain on the L side, she appears to have a nice wide mouth and a good latch on both sides so I can't see what we may be doing 'wrong' but the nipple pain is unbearable, as if she is biting. We've tried lots of different positions.

After a minute or so it eases and the rest of the feed is fine. It's been like this for several days and the pain is getting worse. I'm sticking with it because it passes but I'm not sure what to do next - I really have to brace myself to start the feed.

Both nipples and breasts are otherwise fine and pain free and not sensitive to the touch. Any ideas? Thanks everyone.

Can you get someone to observe the latch? I had problems with my right one at first until a midwife had a look and literally tweaked it by a couple of mm and it was fine after that! Just a tiny alteration made all the difference.

I'm going to check out a bf cafe on Tues for some help - just lots of feeds between now and then...yikes!

I'll try a mirror and see what I can see of the latch from the other side. I also read about pain before let down and wondered if I should try and hand express for a minute per feed to move things along, any thoughts on that?

Otherwise smothering on Lansinoh but given no soreness, dryness or cracking I'm not sure this helps in my case.

Am really hoping this isn't one of those things I just have to live with for several more weeks, it's hideous!

I don't think hand expressing would help. Let down pain for me is very different from a latch that doesn't quite work and I have a very forceful let down!

What I was doing wrong was having DD's head too near the centre of my chest. I moved her head a bit more "out", a tiny bit more to the right and that meant that she wasn't tugging so hard on my nipple.

I had the same problem on my right hand side, I experimented with having baby in different positions, rather than sticking with a cradle hold. I found sticking with cradle on left but having him sort of sitting up facing my nipple totally sorted it. Might be worth trying a few different positions?

Thanks saltyair - we've tried the rugby hold and cradle hold on that side but both cause the same symptoms. Will try your sitting up position too, haven't heard of that at all but up for trying anything.

Last feed an hour ago I had smothered in excessive Lansinoh all afternoon (having spent the afternoon skin-to-skin in bed all afternoon), waited until the let down had caused it to start dripping and tried to shuffle her back out a bit, and something made it marginally easier! But boy that's a whole lot of effort to go to every feed!!

Persevering...!