hi, bit of a crisis situation here, I will speak to my midwife about it as soon as poss today too of course but hoping the wonders of Mumsnet will be able to help.
Had my baby daughter last Wednesday, lovely natural birth, second child. She has been feeding well with lots of wet and dirty nappies but it has been increasingly painful. Yesterday she started refusing to feed and I realised my nipples had started bleeding. Only on one side to start off with, so I fed her from the other side overnight and first thing, and expressed from the bleeding one, but now both sides are bleeding. She was hungry this morning of course, so I fed her some of the expressed milk from a medicine syringe to keep her going. Don't really want to use a bottle at this point as there are obviously already latch problems.
I have already been using lots of Lansinoh, keeping nipples aired as often as possible, rubbing a few drops of milk into them after feeds. I knew there was a problem with her latch because of the pain and have had lines across the middle of the nipple where she has squashed it, so have been working and working on improving latch and positioning but can't seem to improve it. I did have pain with feeding my first child but no bleeding and just gritted my teeth and got through it - not an option this time since she started refusing.
Please any advice as to what to do next would be much appreciated, I don't know how to do this mothering stuff without breastfeeding! and her brother has food allergies and eczema which makes it even more important we get this sorted.