Questions about preventing mastitus

[Lalarosex]

Babe is 8 weeks old and I’ve had 2 rounds of mastitis. He is being checked for tongue tie but my feeling is that I have an oversupply

• Now that baby is going 3-4 hours between feeds, how do I prevent getting engorged in between?
• How do I prevent this once he starts sleeping longer overnight?
• I try to feed off both sides per feed but he sometimes seems done after 5-10 mins on one side.

Thanks mamas!

You could just do one side per feed, I always did that. You will adjust and the consistency might help?

Do a tiny bit of hand expressing in-between if you feel it getting painful, but otherwise just leave alone and things will settle down.

Sleeping longer overnight I'd deal with it when it comes to it, he might be two or three and you might have stopped breastfeeding long before that. ;)

Ah, my sympathies, I had massive oversupply and had many issues with mastitis and blocked ducts. Have you read about block feeding? It’s basically only feeding off one side til it is empty. It is uncomfortable and you feel scared about getting too engorged on the other side, but really it’s the engorgement that is sending the signal to your body to produce less, as it’s being unused.

With oversupply you need to be careful not to additionally stimulate your breasts with expressing, even sometimes the hot water in the shower made me spontaneously produce loads and I had to try to direct the water away from my boobs.

Im not sure if this is accurate, but I always felt that if there was a reduction in frequency of feeds that was consistent, it usually took my body 3-4 days to get the message. So hang in there with engorgement during that time and it should improve.

That said, if you get signs of blocked ducts or mastitis, you need to take action to clear the block, which is counter to the advice above. Warm wet heat, massage and expressing out from the sore area. Although a poster recently told me they no longer recommend heat - possibly because of the issues above - was the only thing that cleared blockages for me though.

The protocol for mastitis has been updated, it’s cool instead of warm now, cold compresses (not
on the bare skin), and comfortable breast rather than empty breast, feed or express just to a comfortable level not further than that. If using massage this means very light touch/tapping, the pressure you’d use to rub a cat’s head, not a forceful deep rubbing or massage.

@Jollyjoy thank you that’s really helpful, I think it’s the worry of not feeding from one side for potentially 6 hours that worries me as it feels super hard by the end!

I’m sure there’s good reasoning behind this but I know that if I didn’t work my blocked ducts out with firm massage, I’d have had mastitis far more often than I did. There’s hardened milk in there and something has to break it up, I just can’t imagine how cool and tapping would achieve this! But I’m assuming thoughts about swelling and inflammation perhaps? Not wanting to confuse, op, I wonder if breasts prone to oversupply do behave a bit differently to the majority.

Yes it’s alarming isn’t it. But super hard doesn’t equate mastitis - it’s only if there’s a blockage which you’d know about with tenderness or redness.