Two bouts of mastitis and my supply is dead. Help?
I’ll be 3 wpp tomorrow.
My milk took forever to come in (day 3 or 4 I think?) so we had to supplement with formula for a while. When my milk came in I was able to give only breastmilk and switched between direct nursing and bottle feeding with zero issues. LO produced the right number of soiled diapers a day and seemed content.
Disaster struck on day 10. I woke up from a one hour nap unusually engorged (it had only been an hour since I nursed!), with lumps all over my right breast, a high fever, chills, and flu-like symptoms. LC confirmed it was mastitis, but because by the next day I was feeling a bit better I wasn’t prescribed antibiotics. However, when I’d nurse LO she was never content and my pumping output dipped a bit, even from my unaffected left breast. I tried power pumping to death and there was barely any improvement. We started giving her half BM and half formula.
One week after the first mastitis issue I found a huge welt on my areola. I won’t bore you guys with the ER drama I went through but long story short, I had a pocket of pus on my areola, and it wasn’t an actual p abscess but definitely a pus pocket (maybe a boil or a carbuncle or something), and likely connected to the previous mastitis issue (everyone said I should have been given antibiotics then). Was told to avoid nursing on that side because of the pus possibly infecting LO, and to avoid pumping because of the friction, but to keep hand expressing. I’m admittedly horrible at hand expressing, I tried watching all the videos and I can’t seem to get it. The day after the pus pocket came to a head and ruptured on its own, and my doctor had to help me drain it. So now basically I have an open wound on my areola. I still can’t nurse from this side because I may still be infectious, and pumping rubs the wound raw. Hand expression, well, I seem to be expressing more blood from the wound than milk from my breast. My supply on my good breast dwindled even further, and now I can barely get an ounce from that side after power pumping. I still try to get LO to latch on that side but she doesn’t get enough from there and needs about 3 oz of formula after nursing.
I feel like I’m a hopeless case. I believe fed is best and I’m glad my baby is still thriving but I don’t want to give up breastfeeding. I want to go back to two weeks ago when I was able to EBF. Is there anything I can do?
Posted Dec 11, 2018, 1:28 AM UTC
Aside from taking stuff to boost your supply, one thing that could help is getting baby back on the breast. The breastfeeding doctor I go to for help has told me that people should continue breastfeeding even if they have infections as mom and baby often share their bacteria and the one causing your infection was probably on your skin at one point already. However I wonder if the open wound makes latching too painful at this point? If so, perhaps a nipple shield could help.
Also stress is a supply killer! This whole ordeal stressful and draining. I would look into some lactation inducing teas etc and see if they help with supply and relaxation.
If these don't help it may be worth it to seek out a doctor that specializes in breastfeeding. In my experience they know a lot more than your average doctor.
It was the lactation consultant that told me not to nurse her directly. :/ But yeah even if I could the open wound is pretty gnarly and latching would maybe kill me. A nipple shield also sounds like painful friction, which sucks.
I hope that this dip in supply really is just the result of stress and infection, and that it’ll all come back eventually. I’m just really sad about how things are now, but I realized that’ll probably make my supply worse.
Thanks for the advice!
It's really unfortunate that it happened on your areola. Just a bit further back and latching wouldn't also be an issue!
You're still in the range of when you supply is regulating so your main goal should be to let your body still know there is a baby that needs to be fed aka getting your breasts stimulated and removing milk - however you can do that comfortably.
If it's any consolation I've met women who have successfully breastfed from one side only. Not exactly ideal when you did have both sides working for your at first, but it can work. Just give baby unlimited and free access to feed whenever they want and initiate a feeding whenever you want as well!