Comments on: Outgrowing Pain with Breastfeeding

By: kylz

kylz — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 11:12:16 +0000

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.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 02:45:10 +0000

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.

By: Angela White, J.D., breastfeeding counselor

Angela White, J.D., breastfeeding counselor — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 01:01:52 +0000

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!

By: Natalie

Natalie — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 18:35:59 +0000

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?

By: Angela White, J.D., breastfeeding counselor

Angela White, J.D., breastfeeding counselor — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 16:03:30 +0000

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.

By: Jen

Jen — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 15:31:14 +0000

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!