Clogged ducts?

[Skiptonlass]

Ok, possibly a daft question!

My milk is only coming out of one or two ducts in each nipple - I can see this when I hand express or pump. Is this normal? I'm not able to pump much either, about 20ml from one breast last time I tried.

Obviously there are several ducts in each one, so why am I not seeing milk flow from all of them?

Ds is a week old, seems ok feeding, latch was checked in hospital and is ok and he's certainly producing enough wet and dirty nappies...

When the nipple has been used for a while I see tiny white spots between the granular looking tissue on the nipple - these aren't visible when the nipple is 'dry' - could these be clogged pores?

I'm finding latch on and let down painful (even in the non fed upon breast.) it doesn't look like thrush (no signs of it in ds s mouth either.) my nipples are a bit sore but nothing terrible- I'm lanisoh-ing the hell out of them, there are no cracks and I'm a first time feeder so they probably just need to toughen up a bit!

Any ideas? I've tried warm shower and massage but don't want to get too vigorous in case I hurt the nipple.

All sounds pretty normal to me. Pumping is no indicator of supply. Dc will always extract more than a pump will.

Doesn't sound like clogged ducts. Sometimes you get dried bits of milk around nipple which is maybe what you are seeing. When I get clogged ducts I get a back up of milk in the part of the breast it liks to. It gets engorged in the part of the breast until it clears.

Nipple tenderness can be common in first week (it should go away v soon) but please get a breastfeeding counseller/professional to re-evaluate your latch as soreness should not persist. Also some people do experience painful let downs. (Think there was a post this week about it on here). The good news is that for a lot of women it lessens or goes away.

Sounds like you are doing a great job so far for a first time feeder

Thanks! It's more of a challenge than I thought it would be... Ds has been on almost non stop since about 4pm! I'd never even heard of cluster feeding but I guess that's what he's doing.

It's very, very tiring (I had a tough section so recovering from that as well) but will persevere!