Out of order
Areole – A ring of color, as around the human nipple.
Engorgement – A swelling of the breasts caused by expanding veins and the pressure of new milk.
There are two problems Abbie is facing now, firstly the engorgement of her left breast. Secondly, cracked and sore nipple on the same breast. When these two come together, it has no difference from getting a nightmare.
The affected side is the one Hayden loves the most, where he usually gets to latch-on. The other one, which is a ‘still’ available or healthy one, is mainly on pump only.
Abbie has to thank to her dearly son for the nightmare she is experiencing now. Hayden did not latch-on properly, as a result the nipple head got hurt so badly. The correct latch-on is that Hayden has to grab the areola into his mouth, but not the nipple only. There are so many sites on breast-feeding where you can read on, terms like latch-on, engorgement are regularily seen. Sore and cracked nipples are usually happened to inexperienced mothers like Abbie.
Due to the soring nipple, Abbie is not able to pump milk nor feed Hayden directly from the affected side. In another word, the milk production has been cut into half, which is about 50 ml in each pumping. The volume is sufficient enough to feed Hayden to full, but we have no extra to be kept in the fridge. If she doesn’t pump the milk out from the affected breast, engorgement will cause pain to her breast, end up with both the nipple and breast are killing the mother. Also, we worry the healthy nipple will come to this state before the soring one recovers. Ehh… Not really low in production, but the milk is not able to be pumped out, instead, Abbie has to press around of it in order to release the milk, quite a tedious thing to do.
In my opinion, when we find Hayden isn’t latch-on properly, we should part him from the nipple instead of leaving him there. I know, it is not easy to do the latch-on, so the mother will get impatient after a few tries. But isn’t it better to be patient a bit instead of getting hurt after that?
I do the bottle feeding most of the time. Sometimes, this little monster just doesn’t want to open his mouth for milk. I think, he could be not ready for milk, or he is ‘guk si’ there. Therefore I don’t open his mouth forcefully, I wait patiently like a safari hunter until I see Hayden opens his little mouth for milk, I stuff the teat into his mouth and the feeding can be done quite easily after that. If I miss it, I mean sometimes Hayden shuts his mouth before I can stuff the teat in, I will have to wait for the next round for the ‘door’ to open up again, like a hunter waiting patiently for his target. I think the same thing applies to direct feeding too.
Abbie just told me that the other nipple isn’t looking too good now. I think, besides the incorrect latch-on, perhaps over-pumping is another reason of the sores too. Anyway, we will see Dr. Koe on this. Another video of Hayden ‘guk si’ after this:-