Extreme pain for first 3 seconds - is this normal?

[Gilliana1]

My baby is 14 days old, and in the last 4/5 days I've noticed every time she latches on to either breast I get EXTREME pain. I can't tell you how painful it is - enough to make me shriek and bring tears to eyes. The pain though only lasts about 3 seconds and then she feeds happily and it is minimally painful.

Is this normal? I thought it my be the position of the latching, but I've tried and tried and it is always the same. Or is she just a biting baby?

Thanks for the advice.x.

I think what you are describing is the pain of the milk letting down - this will get better relatively quickly.

It's worth seeing bf councillor or good midwife to rule out any problems such as thrush or positioning problems.

Congratulations btw on the birth of your baby

I got that while everything settled. Make sure your nipple isn't hard, I had to flex mine abit first.

Aka the Ten Second Toe-curl I believe - I could be wrong but I think that if the pain stops after a few seconds then it's okay and yes it does get better (think mine had totally gone by six weeks but gradually improved before then).

Yes I'm afraid it sound normal to me! I had it with both ds's and no other problems- it's really toe curling eh? It gradually eased after the first 3-4 weeks.

Sounds a bit like thrush to me.

I did not think breastfeeding was supposed to be painful. I breastfed 4 babies and the only time I had pain it was the sort to make me cry and it occurred mainly when beginning to feed. I had thrush.

DG- the milk letting down can be very painful - a bit like electricity shooting through your nipples - at least that's how I experienced it with dd1 and ds (not with dd2 though) - the midwife told me it was normal, in my case, it wasn't thrush. It got better withing 2/3 weeks.

Of course it could be thrush - any redness, burning sensation, white flecks in the baby's mouth?

Thanks for the advice. I don't have any redness or burning sensation, and when little one wakes up I shall be looking in her mouth. However, I am taking antibiotics for a bladder infection so maybe this has killed all my natural bateria and caused thrush? I dont have any discharge down below though or anything.

I'm definitely producing a lot more milk then I was, little one keeps getting hicups when feeding and I am assuming it is the flow rate causing her to gulp. I'm hoping it is just the let down and it will go quickly.. I don't know how much longer i can breast feed for with this.

Gilliana, I didnd't have any other symptoms other than the pain you describe - certainly no symptoms of thrush in the vaginal area. No spots were found on my dd's cheeks either. In fact, thinking about it, maybe I was just experiencing painful let down as Belgo describes here, but I did not have it with my first 2 children or my last, only my dd. I was given ABs for "suspected thrush" and I have to say it cleared the problem up immediately so I always assumed the disgnosis was correct.

I only mentioned thrush as a thought for you to consider. Bear it in mind if the pain continues.

I did have toe-curling pain for the first few seconds, but that was from day 1 and it had more-or-less gone by day 14. If this is just starting now then it could be thrush, although I'd have expected that to last longer than ten seconds.

I had this Gilliana! And at the time was worried because I couldn't seem to find anyone who'd had the same - I would count really loudly, banging my foot against the floor, until the pain passed... I found that first the feed stopped hurting completely, then the 'clamping on' pain got better on one boob, then the other. It took a little while - but I think by 4 weeks it was more or less fine and now at 11 weeks I don't even think about it. I really remember how very painful it was though, so completely sympathise...

Gilliana - I have read that taking antibiotics can cause thrush so maybe you should get this checked out at least to rule it out.

v. normal for me, ds is now 8 months and still bf 2-4 times a day!

seemed to go away quite quickly for me!

why oh why don't the books or the BFing advisers admit that yes, this is normal for a lot of women. It freaked me out with my first baby and I quit feeding after 2 weeks. With my second I knew what to expect a bit more, and I had this sort of pain for a few weeks - it's horrendous and I sympathise. It does get better but I know thats not much help when you're feeding so many times a day.

Make sure you get plenty of help with positioning and latching so that you can feel satisfied that you're doing everything right. (The professionals seem to say that once that's right then it shouldn't hurt, but that isn't my experience - and I had a private midwife who visited me every day for a month to help me, so I'm sure I wasn't doing it wrong for all that time)

Having said that, my baby is now 11 weeks old and I do have thrush, but my symptoms are mainly pain when NOT feeding, rather than during feeding (bizarrely) so go through all the possible thrush symptoms to check whether you think you have it. You don't have to have all the symptoms for it to be thrush, and I now think I've had it for ages, so maybe my latching on pain was thrush - who know? The symptom that confirmed it's thrush is the extreme sensitivity of my boobs to the cold - an odd one, but there you go. And DD has no symptoms at all.