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Infant feeding

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

Original poster

Did it hurt when you first start breastfeeding your baby... honestly?

80 replies

lovecloud · 10/08/2006 09:04

It did with me both times and babies latch was checked with both.

I think it is wrong to tell new mums that it will not hurt if babies latch is correct, makes mums feel like they are failing if they are doing it correct.

Of course everyone is different but I know only of two people who said they had no pain whatsoever and about 20 who did experience pain, I am sure many of these 20 people did not have baby latched on correctly but not all of them. Quite a few even went to breast feeding classes.

I just started this thread out of interest after reading another thread today. I think mums should be prepared that there MAYBE pain at the beginning but with support it will ease and feeding will become a very enjoyable experience. I think this would make more mums stick at it and get through those early weeks.

This happened with my close friend who recently became a mum for the first time, i told her that it will hurt but will ease after her breasts get use to being drained 8 or more times a day for 20 or more minutes. She had councellors check her latch a few times who said it was great and it did hurt but she remembered my words and after a few weeks she was pain free she said she was glad she was prepared for experiencing pain.

What do you think?

OP posts:
KathyMCMLXXII · 10/08/2006 09:52

Latch-on - yes, for a few minutes, for a few days, and not badly. What made me was the midwife in hospital who, when I queried, 'Oh, am I doing it wrong? I've been told it's not supposed to hurt if you're doing it right', replied, 'It doesn't hurt, it just feels a bit different'. Duh.

Let-down - yes, for several months.

Lovecloud - fab post, I agree completely, but you express it way better than I ever could

My best friend recently had her second baby. She perservered with bf the first through a very painful few months and ended up bf for a whole year. She was therefore not at all amused to be told by a midwife (who had never breastfed) that if it was hurting with the second the only reason could be that she must have got the latch wrong!

Spagblog · 10/08/2006 09:53

God it hurt. I had to bite down on something, or do my breathing exercises when my two first latched on.

It soon passes though.

tiktok · 10/08/2006 10:31

As a bfc, I think it is important to tell mothers that if it hurts, not to put up with it, and not to assume that it has to hurt.

I have seen far too many women persevere with nipples that develop cracks and breaks, because they have been told that almost everyone goes through this and they just have to put up with it.

Bollocks.

Yes, sometimes pain and damage do get better by themselves.

Yes, sometimes there seems to be little that can be done to fix it.

But in the majority of cases, skilled help can fix it so it doesn't hurt. I don't care how many midwives or others have seen the attachment and have pronounced that it's fine. Any experienced bfc will have heard this many times, and when she gets to observe what's going on, will be able to see something that is very clearly not fine at all (usually in the way the baby takes the nipple).

This is not to say it's the mother's 'fault' - blimey, we mothers take every bit of self-blame that's going, don't we?! - but it is to say something is not right and that something can be fixed.

I prefer to tell mothers ante-natally that some mothers do experience some pain at first; if this gets worse, despite routine attention to positioning, rather than better over the first days, then something needs to be done to correct the positioning immediately, because the damage to skin can get worse.

We don't know everything there is to know about pain and breastfeeding. Some mothers experience it whatever they do. But telling people it's normal will really not help at all.

ProfessorGrammaticus · 10/08/2006 10:59

Yes at first on latch-on (with both though, and I don't think there was any problem with the latch).

After a few days no.

Let down a bit sore in the evenings - felt as if my body was struggling then, needed to eat more to make enough milk.

So I think it can hurt a bit at first and it doesn't mean there's any problem but no experience of anything else.

florenceuk · 10/08/2006 11:03

Actually it did hurt with me both times - the first time for more than six weeks (ouch) and the second for about three weeks. But I knew the reason it hurt was poor latch and it just took that long for me and baby to get it right. Even if the latch looks right it may not be - you need to experiment with angle etc. And I knew that because when I finally got it right it was perfect - and then I couldn't do it again that night, had to keep trying again and again. I think it is right to say it will hurt, but that if you do get it right it won't - but that could take some time.

CHEskidee · 10/08/2006 11:12

never ever hurt. but i have textbook breast feeding nipples.

fireflighty · 10/08/2006 11:24

I think there are two messages about what's normal that tend to get mixed up.

On the one hand there's the common "it shouldn't hurt" message, which I think makes people (certainly it did me) feel like screaming back "but it * well DOES hurt, OK?!". (I had thrush early on, perhaps due to an early latch problem.) It's not very helpful given in isolation (which it often is), and I think it does tend to make you feel that you're a failure and doing something wrong, because of the word "shouldn't".

On the other hand, there's this rarer message: "it can be perfectly normal to experience a latch or other problem at first, and therefore pain, and to need to get help with it". To me that's more useful and important, and it isn't really implicit in the basic "it shouldn't hurt" one, which is the one that I think gets given out more.

The fact is that thrush, latch problems and so on are part of the normal range of breastfeeding experiences - some people will experience them. So it's that experience of pain - the pain plus the latch checking and fixing if necessary - that ought to be normalised IMO - not the idea of pain that gets better by itself (I agree that people shouldn't be led to expect that).

I don't know if that makes sense, maybe it seems like quibbling too much over wording. But the simple "it shouldn't hurt" message does seem to imply that as a mum you're clearly doing something wrong, and in fact having a latch problem doesn't mean you've done anything wrong at all - you can be trying your very hardest and still have pain and need help. "it's hurting you a lot right now but we can almost certainly fix that" seems more useful and kinder.

Quootiepie · 10/08/2006 11:30

I found it painful at first... I just accepted it, I think (it felt like) my nipples ajusting or something. 4 1/2 months on I feel nothing... It really does get better. I used to get very full aswell, and that didnt help. Getting out of the bath my boobs would literally explode with milk! It would shoot out a foot or two

Bugsy2 · 10/08/2006 11:46

I never made it through the pain with my first. Ended up expressing for 16 weeks!
I had breasts like footballs, hard as rocks & I have very girlish nipples, so there was almost nothing protruding for my poor DS to get hold of other than the very end of my nipple.
Added to that his head was so sore from forceps delivery that he wouldn't open his mouth to latch on properly.
Even with the help of a bfing counsellor, I still couldn't get a decent latch on. The pain was so intense. Just couldn't hack it, so expressed for 16 weeks.

pacinofan · 10/08/2006 11:48

DD1 - yes, it did hurt and actually made my toes curl, literally! I perservered and about 48 hours on, no probs.

DD2 - nipples bled badly, thanks to a midwife suggesting 'Lansinoh' they cleared up no probs. 3 lots of mastitis later, we are still breastfeeding at 18 weeks, partly due to a lot of help and support I have had on this forum. Thank you ladies!

thepoppy · 10/08/2006 11:58

it really hurt sometimes during the first couple of weeks, nothing cracked or bled, and there were times when I screamed/cried in pain. But I persevered and it's great now. Most of the pain was due to letdown, and it still does sting every time it happens, but it's not painful anymore.

Enid · 10/08/2006 12:02

yes it hurt for a week or so with dd1 and dd3 then got better

dd2 it was painful for ages about 6 weeks

PinkTulips · 10/08/2006 12:15

pain was phenomenal for me with dd and if it hadn't been for a fantastic public health nurse (HV) i might not have survived the first few days, my nipples were cracked and bleeding as dd was comfort sucking 24/7 and my let down REALLY hurt, a searing burning pain all through my chest. she was latched on just fine but it still hurt. i wasn't prepared for itat all as i'd been told as long as you do it right theres no pain

it's not so bad this time but thats because i knew what to expect this time... not because it's pain free. so much less stressed and upset than i was with dd and it's made it all so much easier

FrannyandZooey · 10/08/2006 12:20

Yes it was pretty awful. I remember getting out of the shower a few weeks post partum and bursting into tears because it felt like the vast majority of my body was just too sore to touch with a towel

I just stood and dripped instead

I think after 6 weeks one day I just thought "oh, it's not hurting any more." Pain at letdown lasted a while longer I think - that could take your breath away, as well.

tiktok · 10/08/2006 12:38

fireflighty, you are right about careful use of language. Saying 'it shouldn't hurt' to a sensitive, in-pain, new mother might indeed sound as if it is a criticism of her.

I like the alternatives you give, though I would still try to avoid 'normal' and choose 'not unusual' instead.

youknowwhat · 10/08/2006 12:53

Agree, pain at the start of bf is not ALWAYS linked with poor latch on.
I was convinced about it with DS1, though that I was doing something wrong. None of the MW at hospital were able to tell me whether ot was Ok or not. I stopped bf after 2 days and DS1 getting dehydrated.
With DS2, I had a bf counsellor coming and she just said. 'The problm with you is NOT the way he is latching on ut the size of your nipples compare to his mouth'. If I had known that with DS1, I wouldn't have felt so useless!!

youknowwhat · 10/08/2006 13:01

I also had gone to a bfing class before giving birth. The idea that I came back with was 'If it hurts, baby hasn't latched on properly'.
I didn't know about painfull let down, problems with the size of your nipples, and the'lipstick shape' of the nipples. I just assume cracked nipples = bad positionning = unskilled mum = bad mum (???).
More information on all what can REALLY happen would be usefull instead of the ideal picture idea of bf that we are all dreaming about.

Highlander · 10/08/2006 13:29

hurt for about 2 weeks, but DS was sleeping OK and piling on the weight so I wasn't too bothered. It was bloody painful though.

dizzybint · 10/08/2006 14:25

yes it hurt me at first too, just for the first 5 seconds or so, toe curling, teeth clenching, eyes squeezed shut kind of pain. then it was all ok by maybe 2 weeks or so. i thought it was let down pain rather than latching pain. i dunno.. anyway now, 11 weeks on, it doesn't hurt in the slightest, in fact unless i watch dd feed from start to finsh she can come off my boob and i don't even notice any difference in feeling.

Philomytha · 10/08/2006 19:50

I'm a vote for the not hurting. I think there might have been a few twinges during the first week, but nothing agonising or long-lasting. Mastitis, now, that was agonising... and that was diagnosed as being because of a bad latch, so I'm proof that whilst a good latch may hurt, a bad latch might NOT hurt and still be a problem.

hermykne · 10/08/2006 19:57

1st time - yes for about 3 days
2nd time - 22mths later, not a bit.

Original poster
lovecloud · 11/08/2006 17:34

well i think i need to send these posts to la leche, nct, hospitals, mw's, health visitors etc... tbf hurts most people at first even if your latch is ok.

OP posts:
sniff · 11/08/2006 17:36

yes all three times till they got used to it

tiktok · 11/08/2006 17:51

Blimey, I don't want to get into an argument, but it is simply not the case that bf hurts most people even if the attachment is ok!

Lets be realistic, by all means, but not to the extent that we perpetuate myths by exagerrating things.

If the attachment is ok, then most people are not in pain.

Believe me, many midwives are not capable of judging whether a baby is well-attached or not. I have seen far too many babies take the breast in a way that is bound to damage the skin, with mothers who have been told their attachment is fine.

Skin does not crack and bleed and graze with nothing to make it do so.

The key to helping (apart from accurate and skilled support) is to explain this in such a way that the mother does not immediately assume she is 'at fault' in some way.

merrily · 11/08/2006 17:53

It didn't hurt me at all to start with. My nipples got a bit tender after a week or two, and I had a painful blocked duct at about 4 weeks, but that sorted itself out after a week or so.

What puzzled me though was I didn't have a textbook latch, like I had read in all the books - my DD never opened her mouth very wide, didn't take all of the nipple into her mouth, she seemed to feed from just the tip of my nipple. Strange, but it worked for us!

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