Help! Finding breast feeding soooo painful...

[hewlettsdaughter]

Hi all
After a shaky start I breastfed ds for 6-9 months about 4 and a half years ago. I'm now trying to establish breastfeeding with dd, who was born last Sunday. I know it's early days, but I'm finding it really really painful when she clamps on - the pain does lessen after a short while but nevertheless persists throughout the feed (and if she has a rest - still attached - and then starts sucking again, the intensity of the pain is renewed).
Does this sound like she is not latching correctly? I know what is supposed to happen, ie she is meant to get as much of the areola in her mouth as possible - and I try to make this happen, but am not sure if it is. My milk started to come in Tuesday night, and my nipples are now sore and damaged-looking. During the feed we just completed, my hand that was supporting my breast was shaking with the pain. This can't be right, can it???

good luck at the clinic - ours were lovely - very helpful. I screamed (fourth go at latching hungry baby onto nipple which felt like it was being attacked by razors) and everyone was very civilised about it

HD Good luck with the breastfeeding adviser, hope you can see the light at the end of the tunel from Monday.

You are doing GREAT going through all this pain, and as many others I would encourage you to continue trying but if the things don't improve as you expect, please don't forget you have also got the right to stop if the thing is becoming unbearable.
Many hugs and lots of luck tonight and tomorrow

how did it go HD?

Message withdrawn

Yorkiegirl, sorry can't answer your question - hope someone else can. Hope you are feeling a bit better, squirmyworm.
Feeding for us is currently a bit of a nightmare to be honest. Didn't go to clinic yesterday as community midwives sent out a maternity care assistant/breastfeeding expert to my house on Sunday - she didn't agree with the midwife from the day before and thought the latching wasn't quite right - dd won't gape enough and tends to 'chomp' on me. She suggested hand expressing to give my nipples a rest, and then going to the clinic on Thursday (the next day that it's open) to see if we can improve things.
Only trouble is I don't seem to be able to express enough to satisfy dd and am ending up going back to the nipple shields more often than not (which aren't giving my nipples a complete rest). Also what I do manage to express is really hard to feed to dd. It was suggested that I cup-feed so I have been using the lid of an Avent bottle - what have other people used when cup-feeding a newborn?

oh hd - sounds like you are having an uphill time - lots of sympathy and hugs

I used an avent top. A clean (boiled) large spoon seemed to work well too as you can kind of 'direct' it in

I too found it hard to express at that stage - (am like a cow now, it squirts everywhere) All the midwives I spoke to were fans of hand expressing but I found it really time consuming and couldn't seem to get a flow going. My breast pump seemed to do much better

my lefty has now recovered thank god - lots of hot baths and massage seemed to work, plus painkillers and as much feeding as I could bear.

hope the clinic helps tomorrow. ds had a small gape and we used to have great fun trying to latch him on with me holding him and dh poking his lips gently wider apart - did help though!

meant to say, yorkie - took about 7 days for my thrush to start feeling better and another 5 or so for the pain to stop altogether - gd luck

Sorry, haven't time to read the whole thread, but I see some people mentioned thrush. I b/f 4 children and the pain you are having sounds like thrush which I had with No. 3. I used to cry when the baby started crying for a feed in anticipation of the pain! No-one seemed sure about whether it was thrush but I took tablets anyway (and baby had to have something too) and the pain went away pretty quickly so I have always assumed it was thrush. Do check it out. I had all sorts of advice and opinions about position, size of baby, etc but the medication was the only thing that stopped the pain.

HD sweetheart, I remember breastfeeding was agony, even tho' ds was a brilliant feeder, latched on well and everything. By day 5 I was bleeding (panicked, thought it was his mouth), and sobbed each time I started to feed. It had just about settled down to bearable levels, after about 3 weeks when my father died, and my emotional state and the practical issues meant I stopped b/fing (regret it a bit now, but no guilt).

Stick with it for a little while if you can honey. If you really can't bear it, don't let other people make you feel guilty if you decide to give it up.

Thanks squirmyworm, Penguin2 and Easy. Just back from breastfeeding clinic - did first feed without expressing or using nipple shields since Sunday - hurray! Didn't hurt as much as anticipated, although I don't think we're out of the woods yet. My problem seems to be positioning, need to work on it.
Those of you who have said not to feel guilty if I end up giving up - thanks! Feel further away from stopping than I did a few days ago, but still not ultra confident.

Do I have thrush? I didn't know you could get thrush in your breast/nipple until now, what are the signs/symptons? I have been breast feeding fine for 5 weeks, usual sore nipples to begin with but all fine until now. In the last few days my nipples have become unbearable and last night when using a nipple sheild one nipple started to bleed a lot, nearly shot through the roof in pain. I have expressed from that breast today to give myself a break. But the nipple is still very sore and the breast is also painful, get an occational sharp pain from within! Does this sound like thrush? I meantioned the pain to my HV on Thursday but she wasn't much help. If it is thrush can you get anything from the chemist for it or do I need to see a doctor? As it is a bank holiday weekend I am not sure I can wait to see a doctor until Tues. Any help or advice?

I dont know anything about thrush but I would phone the nct breastfeeding help line asap. They havea web page with it.

Thrush on the nipple is often sore and itchy at the same time. Your position may have slipped slightly leading to cracked and painful nipples, but yes thrush will also cause this pain. If its been around for a while it may have got into your milk ducts in which case you'll have pain even when the baby is not feeding. Have a look at your baby's tongue BEFORE a feed. If its got a white covering then there is a good chance both of you have thrush.

There are literally loads of different ways to treat it but the most effective would be to go to the doctors as soon as possible and make sure that they give you a cream for your nipples, a pill to take orally (preferably fluconazol and NOT nystatin as nystatin takes a lot longer to cure the problem) and finally oral gel for your little one. There are other things you can do to help yourself but I wouldn't leave visiting the doctor - in rare cases if thrush gets "set in" it can take a very long time to clear up (although this is rare) . There are loads of recent threads on this issue in the breast feeding section - would write more but need to go to baby. sorry.

does anyone know if thrush is painfull or uncomfortable for the baby?

Bumping this up for you ZaksMom.
Also, can anyone advise how to get your baby to gape more before latching on? I am still using nipple shields, on and off, as dd won't take a big enough mouthful of breast and I don't want my nipples to get as sore as they were about a week after she was born (I know the shields probably don't help with the latching but I feel like I need to use them occasionally for me). Am thinking of engaging an independent midwife who specialises in breastfeeding to come and help with getting the positioning etc right, but meanwhile does anyone have any specific tips re getting the baby to gape?

Anyone?

HD, try skin to skin contact with the baby, co-bathing and co-sleeping...anything like that stimulates the baby's own instincts to open wide.

There are some bfcs who say they have had success with actually showing the baby their own open mouth, to see if this will get the baby to copy...worth a try.

Zaksmum - yes, it is thought that thrush can be painful for the baby, though most of the thrushy mums I have seen and spoken to don't remark on this. I once saw a baby with a horrible thrushy mouth, and he fed just fine....!

Thanks tiktok. Am already co-sleeping. May try the copycat thing (you never know...).

HD - my dd is not a natural gaper either, prefers to just open her mouth slightly. have you tried sort of squidging the breast so she has to gape in the right way to get on, and then shoving the back of her head close up and over the nipple. difficult to describe but I learnt it from BF counsellor with dd1. and making sure she's crying hard before latching on does mean their mouth is wide open...sort of mid-yell!

btw I don't mean make them cry but wait til she is fully roused and awake rather than half sleepy. it helps with mine.

Fennel - thanks. I hadn't been 'squidging' until fairly recently (a midwife showed me what to do). DD still manages to slip into 'sucking a straw' mode though. The crying thing is interesting - something I read said not to try and latch them on mid-yell. However I will try anything - getting desperate now.

Hello - I was in absolute agony with both dd's for the first month, cracked, bleeding nipples etc. I found nipple shields on alternate feeds combined with a cream called Kamillosan which my midwife recommended worked for me (altho rubbing breastmilk on them and letting it dry in air was a good help too). I did try different positions too and although never quite got the hang of many of them, they did provide a bit of relief simply by the fact that it was'nt constant pain in the same place! Plus perseverence that it would be worth it in the end (honest!!) and I went on to breastfeed both of them for 21 months. HTH.

HD- why not get a BFC to come to you- it's cheaper!! Or if there is a doula near you she could also come (check if she has BF qualifications) - quite a few of us do!

HD - expert baby breastfeeders can latch on in mid-yell as they know to get their tongue out the way. Less expert ones don't know, and the tongue is not in the right place in the mouth to make it a good idea - try yelling yourself and see where your tongue is --- and how it would get in the way. Some babies who latch on mid-yell end up pushing the breast/nipple out and then hanging on to it (ouch).

If I practise (silently!) yelling my tongue is at the bottom of my mouth - would that not be right for bf? Pupuce - good point re cost but the reason I am thinking of approaching the independent midwife is that she has been particularly recommended to me. PP - did you manage to improve your/the baby's positioning or did things just get better with time for you? Really want to continue bf but need to sort this gaping problem.