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Plugged ducts while breastfeeding a child

Plugging in breast can develop in nursing mothers especially who has a big milk supply. It can happen because mother didn’t empty her breast for a long time. For that can be numbers of reasons such as you got too busy and forget to do it on time, your child start to sleep over night, you might sleep on your belly, you wear the wrong size bra and wrong fitting, you feed your baby on timely basis and not as much as your child wants to, your child refuse to eat or eat less than usual and you didn’t pump after skipped meal. Read more about what to do if your newborn child refuses to eat.

When you develop this disease your breast starts to hurt. Usually one breast will be affected with plugged ducts. It might become swollen and hot. If you notice that something is wrong you should inspect your breast right away to find whether you have some hardness there. You have to react promptly and aggressively on it because if you ignore this problem and hope that it will go itself away then it might get worst. Even if you start to feel that your breast hurts only in the evening you should never wait until morning because you might have a fever in the middle of the night because of that. Therefore, the earlier you begin to fix the problem the less complication you’ll get.

Plugged ducts is not very dangerous disease as long as you will manage to control it. Moreover, with prompt treatment it can go away in a few days. What happen is that your milk cannot come through because it clogged. You need to do everything to get it drain. First of all you need to call your doctor or lactation consultant to ask for directions. You will describe your symptoms and they explain what to do in your situation or you may want to make an appointment to actually show your breast to the health care provider.

Your practitioner may advise you to put warm compress on your effected breast, take a warm shower, or to soak your entire breast in the sink with warm water for a few minutes. These should help to open porous. You need to massage the area where you feel with your fingers the plug.  However, you shouldn’t do it too hard because you might damage your sensitive skin in that place. Do gentle circular movements with your fingers down to your nipples and try to push clogged milk out. After that you need to try to empty your breast by breastfeeding your child or pumping milk. You can even ask your husband to suck the plugged milk and then spit it out. Make notes when you breastfeed or pump your breast. You should empty it no longer than every two hours even in the night time.

If you got temperature call your doctor or emergency right away. They probably prescribe you antibiotics which you will have to take about 7-10 days. While drinking that medicine you can continue to breastfeed, however, you and your child will have potential risk of getting yeast infection. In addition, antibiotics kill not only bad bacteria, but good ones also. So, you might get some diarrhea and other health problems. The bottom line is that don’t take more antibiotics as you necessary have to. Try to prevent or resolve the problem with your breast right after it begins.

Medical Disclaimer

The author is not a doctor and the information in the article is general in nature with no medical advises given or imply. Talk to your doctor, nurse or medical advisor how to treat health related problems.