A question for maggie...

Maggie, I told you I was in that car accident a couple of days ago.

Well yesterday, I noticed my breasts leaking.

Could the accident have caused that to happen? Like a stress reflex?

 

No, sweetheart. That was a conincidence. It is just your breasts getting ready for feeding your baby in two and a half months.

I remember in my first pregnancy, the first time I leaked, I leaned over, and wham, the front of my shirt was wet. I was like, OMG, they WORK!!!!

Congrats on the milk, honey. Just leave it be, and wear a light nursing pad if it continues. You will have days where you leak a little more and days where you don't at all. A lot of pregnant mamas leak more during or right after and orgasm, too.

You are just experiencing working mammary glands. It's supposed to do that. Congrats. Celebrate with some ice cream.

 

OMG, I'm actually starting to tear up, thinking about how cool your working breasts are. :')

 

You too?

Man, I was so excited to know that they actually WORK that I was dancing around. I was so worried that I'd be unable to make milk, that my boobs were difficient or something. YAY!

But they're SORE. I didn't think that would happen until after the baby suckled and the regular breast milk came in. I didn't think colostrum would make them sore like this...But if it's normal, I'll just put warm pads on them.

 

eek! how cute. i still spray milk....

 

Yay! I'm glad you're O.K. after the accident. Myna, Jim will have to pull off to catch his breath and milk sprays everywhere! Or he'll just pull off to have a look around and be completely oblivious to the milk soaking his head. My milk didn't come in for like, 5 days or so and it didn't come in totally until well after a week, whats the deal with that?

 

dunno. sometimes my baby yanks off my nipple and the milk squirts clear across the room. my older daughter thinks it's hilarious..

 

I used to spray my dh in bed while he was sleeping. Not on purpose, but the babies would pop off to catch thier breath (when you have a really strong let down, the babies have to sometimes come off the breast to get some air) and the milk would shoot in an arc and hit him.

A few of my kids thought my strong let down was funny, and they would pop off on purpose, to play in the spray. (This was when they were older, not new borns.)

Just for the record, many many mamas do NOT spray milk, but they do make enough. There is a ring of muscles around each nipple pore, and those of us who spray have "leaky washers." Eventually, the muscle gets stronger and the spraying stops, or at least slows down.

But, there are many mamas who never spray and rarely ever SEE their own milk and make enough for the baby with no problem. Either spraying or not is normal.

 

you know, sometimes when my milk lets down REALLY hard, and it REALLY hurts, you can see these little nodules in my aereola. i have to put a warm wet cloth on them then massage them. it's terribly painful and feeding is totally not an option anyway. so even though my baby wants to feed, i have to take care of my breast first. it's kinda agonizing sometimes.

 

Ooo, those little things which look like pimples on the areola? Those are your Montgomery glands. Do they hurt? Are they inflamed? There isn't any pus coming out at any time? They can, sometimes, get infected. If the pain is too terrible to nurse, you may want to have an LC or good la leche league leader look at them, to make sure they are not infected. It is not that common, but it does happen.

(I have seen a few doctors who don't know what Montgomery glands are. Good docs know, but I had a client whose doc tried to "pop" one, thinking it was a clogged pore. If you do see your doctor, (and if they are infected you may need to) make sure he or she knows about what normal lactating breasts look like.

I'll try to post a picture.

 

no, it's not those. i get those, they're not trouble. but it's interesting to know what they are. i'd assumed they were pimples and treated them as such, ie. left them alone. i mean, inside the aereola, under the skin, i can see the milk ducts swelling. it's horrible.

 

Sounds like you have a clogged milk pore. It can be very painful. Try warm compresses. If it gets hot, red or you are running a fever, or you feel ill, talk to your doctor or midwife, and they can treat it like mastitis. Probably, Dicloxicillian or Cloxicillain, if you can take pennicillins. Or something like Keflex if you can't.

See if you can get an LC or a LLL leader to look at it.

I hope you are feeling better.

 

yeah, it responds really well to the warm compresses, though i'm not sure anything is clogged, really, at least not critically. it's only when i feel that milk pushing SO HARD. it's a little freaky, like my breast is trying to come out through my nipple and i have to push it back up into place.

 

I'm one of those who never leaked. Sometimes wished I did, engorgement hurts!

did you have a cesarean? did baby get bottles or have a weak suck or poor latch? did you put baby on a feeding schedule? those things will cause your milk to come in slower. Happened to me with my first, but after my second was born, my milk came in on day two!

 

with kai i was constantly paranoid that she wasn't getting enough milk because i never saw it, and my let down was so...gentle, i guess. and she was such a skinny baby. but she was totally healthy and happy. she's just skinny, like her grandmas. joey, however, is quite the little eater.

 

He did get bottles at first! And he couldn't latch properly until they fixed his tongue. Hence, the bottles. They forced them on us at the hospital instead of finding the problem with his tongue and fixing it! Finally, after half dozen bottles at home I realized the nursing was in jeopardy (even though we were only giving him just enough to keep him from starving) and just STOPPED it! Finally my milk came in! But I can see how new mamas give up and just give bottles, it was an easy fix.

 

Reminds me of a baby show I watched recently on TLC. Bringing Baby Home or something like that.

The baby had been a good birth weight. Over 5 lbs. The doctors told them that he didn't weigh enough and he wasn't interested in eating (was sleepy baby). Instead of getting a LC in to see them IMMEDIATELY, they gave them "supplementary" bottles and let them go home, telling them to see a LC within a week.

A LC could have shown the mother how to overcome the sleepy baby thing, check for any other problems, and recommend other things to do besides just offering a bottle, right?

Anyway, they did a follow up with these people 3 months later, and surprise, surprise, the baby was bottlefed. He hadn't "Taken to the breast". He seemed "Born to bottlefeed."

That show infuriated me beyond anything else I've seen baby-related. I'm really hoping that between my midwife, my doula, a friend of ours that's breastfeeding her toddler, and everything I've read, I can get the baby breastfeeding immediately, or at least trying. But then again, I feel like I'm staking quite a bit emotionally on my ability to breastfeed, and if I can't or the baby won't, I am not sure how that will effect me.

 

Oh my gosh Holly, your baby will be here in two months! It was hard for me but I had to "Just do it!" It's only recently that I've been able to BF without pain, I just had to set my mind to it. I just got it in my head "Formula is not edible." and I pushed through. You can do it, you are so strong! It says alot about you that you have staked alot emotionally on it. You'll have the determination to push through any problems you may have. If something happens that you really can't you'll just have to forgive yourself and make peace with it.

 

And trust your intuition! Hubby and I KNEW something was wrong, we should have pushed and fought the formula. You will have instincts regarding your baby, listen to them!

 

They wouldn't fix my oldest child's tongue-tie! Said they'd seen plenty of babies with tighter frenulums that could nurse just fine. But she couldn't... she did finally outgrow it and got big enough and strong enough to nurse when she was three months old. It was very hard, but I made breastfeeding work in spite of all the bad advice I got, and all the problems we had to begin with. I was on a mission to make it work, and nothing was going to stop me from breastfeeding her! My second baby was also born tongue-tied, but she had no problems nursing at all.