Outgrowing Pain with Breastfeeding
August 19, 2007 by Angela White, J.D., breastfeeding counselor
Filed under breastfeeding, breastfeeding basics
The discussion about toughening up the nipples for breastfeeding sparked an interesting comment from Dawn Martin:
“Some tenderness…” Right…. I can’t tell you how much Lanolin I used each time (I’m nursing my second now) and it STILL hurt like hell in the beginning. I am quite sensitive to pain. What would have been helpful with my first was knowing that a) we were doing it the right way and b) the pain would eventually go away. As it was, I concluded that if she was getting milk and thriving, we must be doing it right.
While I wouldn’t suggest toughening your nipples (why start the pain early?), I can certainly see where the practice came from. I’ve seen this advice in many different bf’ing resources, I really feel that this is not helpful to women just starting out with bf’ing. Sure, you have to get the latch right. But if it is right, and it still hurts, knowing that eventually the pain will go away would be more helpful. Otherwise, they may give up, thinking that “it just doesn’t work for them.”
Just my 2 cents…
Dawn
Dawn, thanks for sharing your thoughts. You’ve got a good point. I know at least two mothers for whom breastfeeding hurt for a number of weeks and then the pain simply went away. There are a few reasons why a mother-baby pair might “outgrow” nursing pain.
It’s possible in such cases that the baby has a short frenulum (”tongue-tie”). While it might be necessary to consider clipping a short frenulum, it is possible for the condition to improve on its own. The Breastfeeding Answer Book states:
Breastfeeding problems related to a short frenulum may resolve over time without special treatment. The movements of the tongue may cause a short frenulum to stretch (Riordan and Auerbach, p. 357) or the baby may adapt his mouth and tongue movements to improve breastfeeding effectiveness.
It’s also possible that the baby simply has a short tongue. In that case, improving latch-on and positioning helps in the short-term, and in the long term breastfeeding gets easier and easier as the baby’s tongue grows.
For some nursing dyads, there may be an unusually great disparity between the large size of the mother’s areola and nipple and the small size of the baby’s mouth. In most cases, as tiny as the little newborn seems, the baby can get enough of the areola for a proper latch, but in some cases it can be more difficult at first and the problem gradually lessens as the baby grows.
I hate to hear of mothers simply bearing the pain (although kudos to those who work though that difficulty!) as perhaps there are some techniques that could help. As I mentioned above, a baby with tongue-tie might require a frenotomy (also called a frenulectomy or frenectomy). If the mother cannot find a doctor willing to perform the surgery or if the mother does not desire surgical intervention, there are some exercises to try to help the baby learn to extend his tongue. Short-term use of a nipple shield might help alleviate the difficulties as well.
The other problem I have with telling women to just hang in there — that there will be pain but it will go away — is that there are other causes of nipple pain that will not correct themselves with time (thrush being an example that springs to mind). Seek help if you’re in pain. At best there will be a solution, at a minimum there will be support to get you through hard times such as Dawn’s.
I’m one of the mothers that Angela knows who experienced severe pain for weeks, then had it finally just go away. For about four weeks after my daughter was born, every nursing session was tear inducing. It felt like red hot needles were being shoved through my nipples when my daughter nursed. I had just been through natural childbirth, but when my daughter started rooting I swore I would prefer to experience that again rather than let her nurse.
Well, of course I did anyway. During the first week, I did ignore common wisdom and pumped so she could be bottle fed for at least one feeding. Pumping hurt, too, but not as much.
I talked to my doctor and a lactation consultant, and no one could diagnose a problem. Her latch appeared fine, there was no sign of infection, etc. It just hurt.
What kept me going was that I knew I was doing the right thing for her. I nursed my son exclusively (with no pain, I might add) for a long time, and it never occurred to me that my daughter deserved any less, even if it hurt me. What was a little pain (ok, a lot of pain) compared to the lifelong benefits of breastfeeding?
Here’s my advice: after ensuring that there is no solvable reason for the pain, just suffer through it until it goes away. It helped me to shove my thumbnail into the side of my finger for a different pain and read a book or watch television to distract myself.
The pain finally subsided when she was about eight weeks old. She’s almost two now, and we haven’t had a problem since. Heck, she’s nursing as I type this!
I was hoping you’d chime in! Thanks for leaving a comment. I think it will help a lot of women to realize that the long-term benefits outweigh the short-term difficulties if they can get through those initial weeks.
I, too, had a lot of pain at first despite a good latch, and it eventually just passed. But the return of my period significantly affected my breastfeeding. Most notably, milk supply went down, but I also started experiencing b’feeding pain for a few days around the time I ovulated–very strange, definitely not like the pain of thrush or the early days of nursing, just extremely tender, like I had been chewed on. It goes away and returns each cycle, but has lessened in severity enough that I feel okay to keep nursing. Ever hear of pain like that?
Natalie — what you are experiencing is normal on all fronts. Some women notice a dip in milk supply (which comes back up again after a few days) and some women experience pain right before their periods start or right around ovulation. It’s all due to the hormonal changes associated with menstruation. The following article from KellyMom describes it just as you do — that it feels like the baby is clamping down or scraping his teeth on the nipple.
http://www.kellymom.com/bf/older-baby/sorenipples-older.html
Glad to hear you’re continuing to make it work!
I also experienced pain with both my children, despite good latches. However, my pain with my second was less, because I improved the latch after reading Dr. Newman’s book. Highly recommend it! Evern after nursing my first for 22 months, I still learned a lot from his book! The pain went away after 5 weeks, but until then, every nursing session involved gritting of teeth.
Im a new mum (bubz isn’t even 1 week old), and breastfeeding is horrible. My nipples r sore to touch, and when bubz sucks omg I want to cry. Its upsetting for me, I don’t think she is latching properly.