Lactostasis - symptoms

Virtually every mother during lactation had lactostasis symptoms. At the same time, milk stagnation was observed in one or several lobes of the mammary glands. Most lactostasis occurs at the beginning of breastfeeding - at a time when milk begins to appear after the colostrum, usually thick and fatty. In the narrow ducts of the lobes, it can stagnate, causing symptoms of lactostasis, and eventually - mastitis.

Factors contributing to lactostasis

Most often, lactostasis symptoms appear in the first 2 weeks of breastfeeding. This can be facilitated by:

Factors that can cause lactostasis are sometimes not associated with natural feeding: they include trauma, a chest blow, its hypothermia, the wearing of tight lingerie by a woman.

The main symptoms of lactostasis in breastfeeding

The first symptoms of lactostasis include a feeling of discomfort in the area of ​​the mammary gland, an enlargement of the superficial veins, redness and pain during a touch. The gland becomes denser, becomes rough to the touch.

If symptoms such as high body temperature develop over time, and lactostasis can cause chills, general weakness, very severe pain in the chest, even at rest, then this is a signal about the possibility of developing mastitis. When expressing milk from the gland with lactostasis and the attachment of inflammation, milk can be released from the hearth of stagnation in the form of curdled clots with a small amount of the herbal liquid, the milk can have an acidic odor.

Treatment and prevention of lactostasis

If symptoms indicate lactostasis, then treatment is primarily removal of stagnant milk from the gland.

  1. The first help in stasis of milk is a pumping with breast massage. Massage is carried out from the periphery to the center of the nipple, including elements such as rubbing and stroking.
  2. Before you begin to decant milk from the site, it is rubbed with spiral movements, seeking relaxation.
  3. With lactostasis, milk must be decanted from the area with milk stagnation, using breast pumps. But manual expression is more gentle and less effective, especially with a strong pain syndrome. Hands can identify the problem nodes and maximize their emptying. The breast pump is also not used for cracking the nipple, as this increases the trauma and can facilitate the ingress of blood into the milk.
  4. It is not recommended to perform a decontamination at night, because at this time the most prolactin is produced, and pumping can promote more milk production. To reduce it during lactostasis, it is recommended to drink less fluids, more often to put the baby to the chest, and to the inflamed area temporarily to reduce the swelling can use a warm shower.

Of folk remedies, lactostasis recommends compresses on the chest with cabbage leaf, baked onion, onion-honey cake from the same parts of onions, honey and rye flour, compress on the chest with camphor oil or a traditional water compress.

To reduce the symptoms of inflammation, a woman is recommended to drink tea from chamomile. Prevention of lactostasis is the frequent feeding of a child at his request in different poses, the absence of breaks between feedings for more than 4 hours, wearing special linen, monitoring the amount of liquid consumed by the nursing mother.