Mastitis is an infection in the breast tissue and can be very painful. The infection takes place in the fatty tissue of the breast and causes swelling. This swelling then pushes on the milk ducts resulting in pain and lumps in the infected breast.
Although it's most common in the first 2-3 weeks of breastfeeding mastitis can occur at any time. I had problems as I over produced milk following both of my pregnancies. Despite using a breast pump, as well as breastfeeding, I struggled to empty my breasts completely. With my youngest I got mastitis when I was weaning him. It was very painful and I had to go to the Doctors to get medication to clear it up. The Doctor also gave me another pill to dry up my milk as despite not breastfeeding any more for over 2 weeks at that point my milk supply was showing no signs of going away on its own. The pills took effect immediately and I stopped producing milk after just 2 days. This helped reduce the pain and after 10 days the mastitis was gone. Had I thought about it I would have gone to the Doctors much sooner.
So how do you know if you might have mastitis?
Here's a run down of some of the common symptoms:
- Enlarged breast on one side only
- Lump on breast
- Breast pain
- Fever
- Nausea
- Itchy breast
- Breast tissue becomes swollen, red and warm
- Enlarged lymph nodes in the armpit on the same side
Treatment is usually a course of antibiotics (as it was in my case). If you get mastitis whilst still breastfeeding it's advisable to continue to breastfeed and use a pump to relieve breast engorgement. I found that holding a hot water bottle to the area was soothing too.
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