Engorged breasts and unable to feed - agony. Help!

[ChickenMe]

I had my little girl on Sunday. She was early (pre 37w) and I think for her the process was a little traumatic. She was back to back, got stuck and it was a forceps delivery after a failed ventouse.
Anyway I put her straight to the breast. No interest. She had low sugars and was jittery. Tbh I was also not too good (they think I had an infection hence PROM) in myself and was kept in as they were unhappy with my vital signs. I didn't push bf with her-I was so exhausted I couldn't hold her. I expressed what I could up until yesterday but she had jaundice and ended up on formula.
Today my breasts have massively engorged. I can't get a drop of milk out of them and my LO will not latch on to clear them. What the hell do I do to get the engorgement out? The skin is so tight the nipple is virtually flat. Even my feet are swollen

Can you hand express? Assuming you don't have a pump to hand. You can find videos online to show you how. Just express enough to soften them and help your baby to latch.

You said your feet are swollen . Do you mean they've not gone down from when you gave birth ? Or that they have swollen up again ?

I'm not sure that's related to the BF and wonder if you have another medical problem .

Especially if you have headaches, it might be you have high blood pressure

If you have swelling in just one foot /ankle / leg and sharp pain in it , you should call the hospital tonight

( disclaimer - I'm not a HCP )

Yes, I was advised to hand express so DD could latch on. Also I found that having a hot shower helped to prompt let down so the excess would leak off before feeding. It helped wth the pain and tight skin too.

Sympathies here - I had oversupply issues so was engorged for months as I didn't want to pump and make the oversupply even worse. So painful...!

I had this in the early days.

I took a bath and applied a warm, wet flannels to my breasts. Then removed a flannel from one breast and gently massaged it starting near the underarm working towards the nipple. I worked through / massaged out any little lump areas - this was trapped milk duct. As the breast slowly softened after some milk leaked out, I hand expressed to relieve the build up. Then put warm wet flannel back on that breast, and did the same with the other side.

I was on the verge of full-on panic as it was very painful, red and as engorged as yours sounds. The warm bath helped me relax, and helped that I didn't have to worry about leakage or expressing once I started to clear the milk ducts and relive the pressure. I think the heat from the bath also helped encourage expressing and got the milk flowing a bit.

Hope you're OK. Breastfeeding is not easy at first, but in time it did get a lot easier for me.

xpost Solas. Great minds…

Oh and it's very difficult to get a latch on an engorged breast. So if you can get a let down and do a little bit of hand express first, this will soften the breast to make it easier to get a latch.

Mention the swollen feet to your MW.

As for the engorgement - all totally normal. Hot rocks we'd call them.

What worked for me, was to stand under the shower and gently massage my breasts. It's best to massage towards the nipple to encourage milk to flow in the right direction. The warmth, massage and shower action may well help to make your milk flow, which will then make it much easier for the baby to latch on. You can even stand (or sit maybe) with the baby in the shower - will be lovely and soothing for you both.

Hi

Thanks for your replies
I spent all day massaging, bath, hot flannels, expressing by hand, machine pumping and finally got DD onto the least painful breast with a nipple shield.yay! She is now obsessed and will not stop!

Was coming to give advice but all these lovely ladies have covered my suggestions.

Yay to obsessed baby :)

Congratulations.

Brilliant Chicken I'm glad it's worked out :)

Thanks. The feet went down a lot once the milk came in and she fed. She has now been nicknamed Madame Milk by me and is doing that damned cluster feeding thing