Blocked ducts or something else?

[Myanna]

This is my second baby, it's a month old.

My breasts seem to be getting rather full and perhaps engorged quite quickly, if I go a few hrs between feeds. When this happens they are painful, particularly I get sore lumps in both breasts close to my armpits. When I feed the baby or express milk then these go.

Is this totally normal or a sign or something not right? I'm concerned about getting mastitis.

As background, with my last baby I didn't have enough milk at the beginning, had lots of difficulty and was prescribed Domperidone to increase supply. I combination fed for a year in the end but never had too much milk and never needed breast pads.

This time I seem to have much more, and am having to use pads.

Could nursing bras which are too small be causing this problem? I'm wearing a J cup but it's still too small and can't find one that fits! Still get it at night though and then I'm just in vest tops.

Thank you!

It sounds pretty normal to me, I think it took about 6 weeks for my supply to be more in sync with my baby’s demands.

I’d ring one of the Bfing Helplines though just to check it’s ok. Have you got the Helpline numbers?

From what you've described, I wouldn't be worrying. The lumps you can feel are your milk ducts filling up. Provided they go down when you express / breastfeed it's completely fine. As Everyone says, your body is still establishing the supply / demand, and producing lots.

The difficulty you might get is ensuring that you're not in too much discomfort (whilst waiting for LO to get hungry) and expressing to get relief - which will encourage your body to continue to produce at that level.

Symptoms of mastitis include a temperature and headache, so keep an eye on yourself. Also ensure that the lumps disappear easily. I had a similar experience and had mild mastitis a couple of times, I self treated though by massage the lumps whilst expressing and using a hot flannel.

Depending on your circumstance, if you have a breast pump and are producing a lot of milk easily, you could consider milk donation. They use it for premature babies and will pick up the donation. It's worth investing if the hospital near you does it, you have to sign up and have a blood test for HIV and the like.

Thanks that's reassuring! Hopefully will settle down soon then. I'll try not to express much.

It's new for me as last time I never had oversupply!

I have to say that size JJ/K/whatever breasts very full of milk is no joke, they weigh a huge amount!