My baby was only a couple of months old and I started to feel like I had the flu and my left side from my breast down was so sore. I couldn't hardly eat, sleep, or rest well. Not to mention my left breast was starting to swell and become painful to touch with anything.
I was beginning to get so sick that I could barely lift my child, and what scared me the most was, it happened
FAST, over a few days!
Being a new mother, I was not sure what was wrong, asking my mother had she experienced it wasn't a help either because she hadn't experienced this ailment either with my sister or myself as babies. So, we called the doctor and I was told to come in for a checkup.
Once there, the doctor smiled after checking me and told me that I had
Mastitis. Scared to death, I asked a million questions at once.
Bottom line, I wanted to know how did I get it and was it killing me!
My doctor laughed and told me it
was not killing me, that it was backed up milk in my breasts milk ducts and luckily there was no infection.
By this time my left breast had swollen so big that none of my tops fit properly and I looked strange to say the least.
So how did I get rid of this swollen milk blocked breast? Simple, apply some warm compresses to it and breast feed from it. I thought my doctor was crazy! I was sure he was wrong, but he assured me that all I had to do was just that and I would be fine, and that my breast would go back to normal size. But he warned me that because it was blocked up, that there would be a lot of milk coming out initially, so to have plenty of bottles beside me to fill up first and then breast feed my daughter when most of the milk was unblocked.
Now that I knew I wasn't deathly ill,
I asked how did I get this "mastitis"? The answer was so simple, I had to laugh at myself. The doctor asked me what side did I feed from the most.
I only fed from the right side! That was my problem. I didn't know that I was supposed to breastfeed from both sides each time I fed my baby. Now that I knew the right way to breast feed, I was given pain and inflammation instructions to help the breast to relax and release the milk easily and a quick stop to purchase more bottles and home I went to pump and feed like the milk factory I had become.
is something that mothers should be aware of. It can be caused by not properly feeding or by not properly caring for the breast and/or nipples. I was lucky that there were no other causes to my ailment, because there could have been. But to those who are mothers for the first time, make sure you know the proper way to feed including the proper way to care for your breast and nipples because it's important to your health and your baby's health as well. Not to mention, you don't want to go through anything near what I went through or worse!
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