I'm breastfeeding my newborn!?

Question

I am breastfeeding my one week baby girl and today my right side nipple was bleeding a lil bit. And i been using a balm that's is used for breastfeeding. Should I still breastfeed my daughter on that breast. Or wait till my nipple heels. I just don't want her sucking any blood from my nipple.

Answer 1

Allow that breast to heal. They have nipples that you can but for just that purpose.

Answer 2

The danger in not feeding on a sore side is that you can mess up your milk supply or you can get horribly engorged. My lactation consultant recommended continuing to feed, as long as I could physically stand the pain. The blood really won't do any damage to the baby, although it might hurt you a whole lot. My breasts were in miserable shape (both of them, so I didn't have the same dilemma as you) and I followed some advice I read online to heal them: after a feeding, fill a bowl with one cup of water as hot as you can stand it. Mix a half a teaspoon of table salt into the water and dip your nipple into this mixture for a few minutes. The slightly salty water will help you heal a little faster. Pat dry, then apply some sort of balm, like Lansinoh. My nipples still hurt like crazy for a few days, but then toughened up. Good luck!

Answer 3

I feel very bad that you are getting a lot of mixed messages because I know how tough breastfeeding is and if you don't have the right information and enough support you are going to want to give up. But I am still going to give you my advice because that is why you asked the question:

Keep feeding your daughter from both breasts. You do not want your milk supply to dwindle because she needs as much nourishment as she can get, and if your supply starts to dissipate a lot of problems will ensue and you'll be tempted to give her formula - don't do it! The first two weeks are the hardest and you are half way there. Both my nipples bled for the first two weeks but I kept going and now they don't hurt at all and my darling girl is getting so big! You'll be very proud of yourself.

If it hurts too badly, then do what some of the others suggested and pump-and-dump - at every feeding just like if your baby were eating from it. At least your supply won't dwindle, and by the time it heals you will have learned latching properly and you probably won't have the problem again.

Good luck, and congratulations!!!

Answer 4

Actually, distasteful though it is, it's completely fine to let the baby nurse on that side. If you can stand it, that is.

You can use a nipple shield and Aquaphor, plus let it air dry (and maybe massage a little milk into it), to try to heal it up quickly. Take some Tylenol or ibuprofin for the discomfort, too.

If you just can't have the baby nurse on that side, you can feed her from the other side and pump from the sore one, but I always found that to be a huge pain.

My second child was born with asymptomatic thrush, which she passed to me. And it got into my milk ducts. I had holes in both nipples, which were cracked and raw and bleeding. It hurt to wear a seat belt, take a shower, wear a bra, not wear a bra, sleep, or hug my husband or toddler. And nursing...well, when she woke up and cried to be fed, I cried, too. We tried Lotrimin. We tried Nystatin. We tried a nipple cream that the pharmacist compounded. Nothing worked. I finally took a 21-day course of Diflucan, which did get rid of it.

In the meantime, I pumped for two days to try to jump start the healing. And I saw a nursing consultant to be absolutely sure that my technique was correct and my daughter's latch was good. I didn't want to make a bad situation any worse!

Those two things together made all the difference in the world.

But I can tell you, from miserable experience, that the baby won't mind any blood that she gets, and it won't do her any harm.

And I ended up nursing my daughter past her first birthday. So hang in there! See a nursing consultant or someone from La Leche League, and things will get better.

Answer 5

My lactation specialist had advised me to continue to nurse on both sides BUT to make sure I used the nipple balm I'd been given when he was born. The woman who said to massage your breast milk on the affected nipple was also correct. I won't lie...it hurt like h-e-double hockey sticks. To me it felt like someone was taking a scalpel and tracing around the nipple but it was only for about 4 days. I didn't stop using that breast for fear of getting over engorged on that side. THAT happened a couple of months later when my son had slowed down his eating and I was left with too much milk. I would have gladly had the cracked nipples at that time since having too much milk can lead to mastitis (spelling) where you get a fever and feel like you have the flu and your breasts are going to explode.

Don't worry about the little trickle of blood that may come from the chapped area. Unless you are HIV/AIDs positive (and I'm assuming you're not, otherwise you wouldn't be breast feeding) your blood will not harm the baby.

Good luck. Isn't it amazing what we women are willing to do and go through for our children and families!!! I hope your babies daddy appreciates everything you're doing to ensure a healthy and happy baby.

Answer 6

Maybe you should let that side rest a day or two, try pumping and throwing it out. Then maybe you'll avoid being too 'full' on that side. Rub some of the breast milk on the affected nipple(gently) and it will facilitate healing. Talk to your dr. or lactation specialist from the hosptal, they'll know what to do. If it's painful, don't keep hurting it, let it heal.

Answer 7

That is a great question. When I breastfed my son I wasn't positioning him properly at first and he gnawed a big old blister right on my poor left nipple. The lacation consultant said to keep on going with that side, or the milk would go way down. She said you could even get lopsided breasts if you fed more on one side continuously. I would definately ask the lactation consultant on this one. It may depend on how bad the blister is.

That lansinoh is so great. So are the nipple cups (not shields) that you put in your nursing bra when you aren't nursing. It keeps the air flowing, and the bra off the painful spot.

Answer 8

I would give that nipple a break. My sister had this happen and her doctor suggested using bottle and breast milk until hers healed. Before she knew this, she kept feeding and her nipples were horrid.....I would definetly give them a rest, not only for the babys sake, but also for yours!

Answer 9

I breast feed my son for the first 6 weeks of his life and i had that problem to but what i did i switched breast for a couple of day to give it a rest then go back but i give you props because that was the most painful 6 weeks of my life but it is well worth the pain for our precious angels huh? Good luck hope it works for you and if you breast start to get really hard lay in a bathtub full of hot hot water and massage them and they will start to leak and it will really relieve alot of the pressure believe me i am talking from experience good luck and hope evrything works out and congrats on the new baby they are awesome arent they?

Answer 10

i would express milk from that breast after every feed from the other until it heals. if you don't know why it's bleeding i would get checked out. it could just be a nursing position problem or it could be an infection such as thrush (the baby could have white patches in her mouth in that case) either way to keep yourself out of misery and to be on the safe side stop feeding on that side until you have resolved the bleeding.