Breastfeeding problems

Most sore nipples are just suffering from unaccustomed wear, but may progress to being cracked nipples, which is extraordinarily painful and can bleed so much that you see blood in the baby’s mouth. Some creams can be helpful but don’t go mad. What really helps healing is allowing the nipple to dry gently, which in practice means exposing your breasts to the air. On the occasions that it is not appropriate for you to go topless, a useful trick is to put a tea strainer (handle removed) into your bra to hold the material away from the nipple and allow air to circulate. What you don’t want is your nipple wallowing in soggy breast pads, especially not those with a plastic backing.

If things get too bad, contact your local feeding counsellor or NCT branch and allow an electric breast pump (which is actually not painful) to empty the affected breast while you carry on feeding with the other breast — at least until the other nipple packs up through overuse. You can avoid this by putting the expressed (pumped) breast milk in a bottle for your baby and trying to get him to feed from the bottle. Bottles with stumpy teats, which are most like human nipples, are less likely to be rejected. Even then he might not take from it, just to add to your problems, in which case rejoice in the fact that you at least have (or had) a sense of humour.

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