We can explain what a mastitis is (and then we will do it), but as they say there: a picture is worth a thousand words. Rudy is a mother who has been breastfeeding her baby for a year and wants to share her story, not because it is inspiring or enjoyable, but to that all nursing mothers are informed about this problem that may arise during breastfeeding.
Breastfeeding is not always a path of roses, complications can arise but the key to solving them is to have the necessary information to know the causes, prevent them as much as possible and know how to act in each case.
What is a mastitis?
Mastitis is the mammary gland infection It causes inflammation and most of the time pain, redness, fever, chills and muscle and joint pain.
It affects 10% of women who breastfeed and it is one of the main causes of abandonment of breastfeeding, although precisely increasing the frequency of shots is the way to prevent it when the first symptoms are noticed.
Warning signs of mastitis
The first alarm sign can be breastfeeding pain. Breastfeeding should not hurt; If it hurts, something goes wrong. Breast engorgement is a fairly painful congestion of the breasts that can lead to mastitis if a solution is not put in place with the proper techniques.
You feel the hot and swollen chest and you can notice small lumps produced by the obstruction of the ducts and appear reddened areas in the chest. While you feel warmth in your chest, you feel chills and fever appears above 38.5º.
In Babies and more A mother shares how hard it can be to breastfeed when you suffer a mastitisRudy's experience
Like what had happened when breastfeeding began, and as happens to many women, I was not informed about the possible complications that could arise when breastfeeding.
This misinformation led her to recognize that she had a possible mastitis that caused her to end up in the emergency room. That's why he now wants to share his experience with other mothers to raise awareness about this painful complication and how to prevent or solve it.
A shared post from MamaClog (@mamaclog) on May 1, 2017 at 12:25 p.m. PDT
This is a mastitis. After a year of breastfeeding, last Sunday I felt compelled to share my story. Breastfeeding was not easy for me. My milk arrived after five days. I wasn't aware that it could take so long, I didn't even know what the "rise of milk" meant. (No one ever taught me.) I was the only mother breastfeeding in my neighborhood. A woman tried to breastfeed, but changed to the formula after 12 hours because she "had no milk" (nobody taught her either). While the other babies slept with a full belly, my son screamed and cried attached to my chest throughout the night. (What was the grouping of shots? No one told me)
When I got home, problems began to arise: my nipple literally broke in half. I never felt such pain, I feared every shot, but I kept doing it with tears in my eyes until they healed me. (No one taught me that breastfeeding could be painful, nobody taught me what a crack was like)
When feeding my child in public, I should either go to the bathroom or take me out at home to feed him with a bottle. Because he felt shame as if he were going to incite others. This resulted in clogged ducts and breast obstruction. (I feed freely in public now, and I've been doing it for a long time. Shit, this society is upside down!)
Then came the mastitis. I remember waking up at 3 in the morning shivering, putting on my robe and extra blankets and trying to feed my son. The pain was unbearable. I was shaking and sweating but freezing to the bone. At 5 in the morning I woke up my boyfriend and told him that I thought I had to go to the hospital. My stepfather, who is a doctor, took my temperature and said it was slightly high, but to take a paracetamol and try to sleep.
At 7am I had not been able to sleep and now I was vomiting, he took my temperature again (40 degrees). I had developed sepsis overnight. This happened because I could not recognize the more subtle signs of mastitis (not appreciating any redness that day)
They took me to emergencies. They gave me morphine and the strongest antibiotics they could give me, and separated me from my baby for two nights. I was shattered.
How to treat a mastitis?
As soon as the first warning signs appear, a lot of chest. You should put the baby to breastfeed as much as possible, whenever you ask for it and if you notice congestion, you should especially increase the frequency of shots since it is the most effective way of emptying. The suction of the baby makes the milk flow preventing it from being retained and increasing the inflammation, while relieving the pain.
It is also effective apply dry heat on the chest and massage (can be done under the shower or during a hot bath). Performing the softening inverse pressure (PIS) is a very simple maneuver that involves gentle pressure from the breast to the nipple (you can help with the knuckles, my mother recommended me to do it with a comb).
When you notice the symptoms you should go to the doctor since a badly treated mastitis can further aggravate the problem by compromising the continuation of breastfeeding.
Many mastitis can be solved only with probiotics, without the need for antibiotics, or to complement antibiotic treatment, since being living microorganisms contribute to reducing the mechanisms that produce inflammation.
Although not usually done and it is common to give a broad-spectrum antibiotic, the correct method of treatment for an infection is take a sample of breast milk and analyze it to determine which bacteria are producing the infection and prescribe the most appropriate antibiotic.
