Mothering Corner

If you started breastfeeding well with proper latch on, breastfeeding is not painful at all. But most mommies went through a period of hardship in breastfeeding, especially during the early weeks. Crack nipples is one of the problem I faced.

Justin latched on very well, and I managed to breastfeed him fully with my colostrum for the first 3 days. During to engorgement, not on the breasts were enlarged (and looked like I had my implants in them!!!), my nipples were enlarged too. Thus, Justin was having a problem taking in the areola with his mouth. He was latching on mainly on my nipples, and after some sucking, I had some minor cracks and it’s extremely painful! Everyone he open his mouth and sucked for the first time, I could just scream and push him away. But I didn’t do that and kept biting on my lips to hang on to the pain. It’s really unbearable!

Luckily, I had a home visit my Mdm Tham on the 4th day, and when she saw how engorged I was, she taught me how to hand massage my breasts to soften the lumps and milk ducts (especially under the armpits) and how to do hand express. She advised me to express out some milk to make the breasts less engorged and also taught how to differentiate engorged, full, and normal breasts.

• Engorged: Hard and sometimes painful. If nipples are larger than usual, newborn babies may have latch on problem, even if they latch on well initially.
• Full: Breasts are harder than usual, but not comfortable at all.
• Normal: Just as soft as they are before you’re pregnant. Soft doesn’t mean no milk, as it’s more on mental to stimulate milk production.

So, I had to make sure that I’m not too engorged for Justin to latch on. The flow would be too strong for him too. Thus, I’d express a bit before nursing him.

As for my crack nipples, I used Palmer’s nursing cream on them, and air my breasts as much as possible. Normally, it’s contradict to Chinese confinement rules as they believe that mothers in confinement should cover from head to toes to avoid “the wind from getting in”. But I was topless most of the time to air my nipples to aid the healing process. I found that it’s best to just apply breastmilk on the nipples after every feed to prevent them from cracking.

But when it’s Isabelle’s turn, I didn’t have this problem at all!