Bleeding nipple. Is it OK to not feed on that side tonight?

[Heirhelp]

My baby was born on saturday night, long labour followed by emergency c section. I have just got home from hospital. Both nipples sore, baby has tongue tie. I tried using nipple shield today and it has made things worse as I did not realise she had a poor latch. Can I just feed from one boob tonight?

Yes yes, that's fine! Can you get a community midwife round tomorrow to help with latch?

Hmm you might be risking engorgement which can lead to mastitis.

Your best bet I would think would be to use nipple cream and be really careful with positioning. Maybe try rubgy ball hold? Or exaggerated latch technique aka "the flipple".
Nipples heal really really quickly once you get latch sorted. Have you been checked thoroughly for tongue tie?

Oh and congratulations!

Congratulations!

Hope you're feeling better today. I agree, stopping feeding altogether on one side risks engorgement and mastitis. As well as what SusanandBinky (fantastic name) suggests, I would say that at the very least you should hand express at least a bit for comfort from engorgement.

I was in the same place as you, I sympathise! It didn't last long. After crying to hubby that the next day I was going to get help I sat up all night watching YouTube videos on perfecting the latch. It improves things just enough that I was able to heal (using tubes and tubes of Lasinoh cream too!). Later found from a lactation consultant that baby has a partial lip tie and tongue tie, but so slight that we seemed to work around them and never had them corrected (though I strongly suggest you do look into it as my baby's was only slight). Bleeding nipples lasted a couple of days. 20 months later, bf going strong.

Thank you. I did three feeds in a row on the least sore boob and then she was still hungry and I needed to feed from that boob. It was OK.

We have an appointment in two weeks to sort out her tongue tie.

Community midwife was suppose to come round today but the hospital had not told them that I had gone home. Our council has pulled the funding for community breast feeding specialist midwife but I spent time with her at the hospital.

Our problem seems to be that she does not open her mouth wide enough to feed.

I am currently taking it one feed at a time and formula milk in the house as a back up.

I was where you are five weeks ago, and also four years ago. I'm still feeding six week old DS with nipple shields, as without the nipples Are Not Happy, despite tongue tie snip and repeated latch checking.

Do you have a pump? I found expressing didn't aggravate the nipple like feeding did, and even if only expressing to relieve possible mastitis, it will help to maintain your supply. If not, you might hand express?

If/when you do latch baby on, push them on to the breast more than you think was comfortable. The midwife I saw today did that and it makes the nipple hurt less, not more.

Different shields work slightly differently.

You can put too much Lansinoh on - if it's too slippy, the latch can skip/not be tight. Do use it sparingly.

Honestly it can get better...

Oh and on getting mouth open wider - I think that might be one of our problems too. Nose to nipple, and if it's not wide enough, take her off and put her on again. It's really, really hard to keep doing it but it does help, and then shove them on further.,

And finally, jellonet for nipple healing - over the counter at some pharmacists. You snip a bit off and out it on.

Not getting the mouth wide enough can really be a tongue tie thing. The flipple or exaggerated latch technique will really help with this

It also helps both you and baby to learn what a proper deep latch is like, so baby us not nipple feeding. Well worth a good attempt

If you really can't bear to feed from the sore nipple, expressing might help to stop engorgement.

I would be really wary of not feeding from one side for long with such a new baby - boobs can get engorgedown really fast in the early days.

Sympathy.😔 It's very sore