Engorged day 3 but no milk

[pizzanoodle]

Hi everyone,

I just had a baby and today is day 3.

I have been trying to establish breastfeeding. Baby seems difficult to latch on as he is not opening his mouth wide enough. As a result I have blisters on both of my nipples.

It is day 3 today and my breasts are engorged but there's no milk coming down.

My question is whether I should continue putting baby on the breasts. Does that make the blisters worse and therefore get in the way of milk coming down?

I also have a breast pump - should I use that instead? Or should I hand express?

My worry is that the engorgement develops into something worse - mastitis for example.

For context, I breastfed my first baby and establishing breastfeeding was difficult in the beginning because of her tongue tie and me losing a lot of blood. After removing the tie and persistent pumping with Medela, I managed to get to a very good supply after a few weeks. We are seeing a tongue tie specialist for baby 2 in a few days.

Would be interested in your thoughts and experiences!

Congratulations! Have you been able to speak to a breastfeeding nurse/Bambi in person? They might be able to help with positioning to get baby's mouth wide (nipple to nose type thing)? My problem was that my nipples didn't really stick out enough so the pump helped that a lot which in turn improved my baby's latch, but he was my first baby so not sure if you would experience something similar second time around (interested to know though!).

Hi there I am a midwife. You milk is on the way! Hopefully overnight. Does your baby look jaundiced? Is he peeing and pooing regularly (at least3 wees and 2 poos in the last hours)? Is he having 8-12 feeds in 24 hours? Did he feed well and suddenly stopped feeding well? If you have any concerns please call your maternity assessment unit for advice. Otherwise just keep putting your baby to the breast and wait for milk to arrive. If you express express for comfort only, you don't want to overestimate the breasts.

Check for a tongue tie. My baby was tongue tied and couldn’t establish a good latch. Once her tongue tie was sorted she breastfed really well.

If your breasts are too full it can help to express a tiny bit before latching the baby on to soften them as they can get quite hard.

It is really hard at first but it does get easier. The nipple soreness will go but it is horrible. Lots of Lanolin all the time helped me along with the very attractive open cardigan and no top look that I maintained for about two months.

I used to squeeze the breast to compress it a bit to get a deeper latch (just sort of around the outer nipple area) and this would help the baby not to just suckle the nipple which causes pain. I don't know if any of this will help but I remember so well being at my wits' end with breastfeeding in the early days.