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Six months of mastitis – Maria’s story

Posted on August 19, 2008
Filed under: Engorgement, Mastitis, Oversupply, Recurrent mastitis

When I was pregnant with my first child my mother asked me if I was planning to breastfeed and I said something like “If I can”. I think this was her cue to start educating me about breastfeeding. She talked to me at length about her own experiences of breastfeeding me then my younger sister in the 1970s. She didn’t receive much support to breastfeed me. I was breastfed for about 6 weeks then fed expressed milk for around another 6. My mother was upset that the advice she’d been given regarding breastfeeding me had lead to her wean me much earlier than she’d hoped, so she was determined to breastfeed my sister when she came along nearly two years later. My mother ended up breastfeeding my sister for 15 months, which was a long time for a suburban non-hippy back in the bottle-feeding 70s.

So back to me. During my pregnancy my mother was determined to educate me about the benefits of breastfeeding. As well as talking to me about her own experiences she strongly encouraged (nagged) me to join a volunteer-run breastfeeding association because it had given her much-needed support when she was breastfeeding my sister. I eventually joined up and went to a few meetings and a breastfeeding education class while I was pregnant, and even though I had a good idea that it may not be easy to start with, by the time my little boy was born I was determined to breastfeed him.

In the beginning I was totally unco-ordinated, my nipples were sore, and when my milk came in I was hugely and painfully engorged with a ridiculously strong letdown. If I didn’t have my baby positioned right milk would flow out his nose, or if he pulled off spluttering, milk would squirt across the room. I had so much milk. I soaked through breast pads constantly, and had to wear them until he was 6 months old to stop myself from being embarrassingly wet-fronted.

Despite my initial extreme engorgement I didn’t develop mastitis… until he was 5 months old when I noticed a hot, red patch on one of my breasts and I felt sick and feverish. I went to the doctor and he diagnosed mastitis, prescribing a course of antibiotics, which cleared up the mastitis beautifully, or so I thought. A few days after I finished the antibiotics I developed mastitis again, this time in a different part of my breast. I went back to the doctor and was prescribed the same antibiotics. The mastitis again cleared up quickly but returned, this time in the other breast, a few days after I finished the antibiotics. This pattern continued until my baby was 11 months old, so for 6 months.

The strangest thing about this mastitis was that it never seemed to be the result of a blocked duct (I felt my breasts and there was never a definite hard area, but tried massaging down to my nipple anyway) and was always in a different position from the previous time. It was also never painful to feed from the affected breast, thank goodness.

After 6 months I finally thought to ask my doctor for a different type of antibiotics but he refused to prescribe anything other than the original ones. That was the last time I saw that doctor. I found a new doctor and he prescribed a different type of antibiotics, saying I should never have been on the other ones for mastitis as it was well-known that they often didn’t work. I started taking the new antibiotics and changed from using regular to antibacterial soap in the shower. The mastitis cleared immediately, I continued using the antibacterial soap and the mastitis never returned. I’m still not sure if it was because I finally got the right sort of antibiotics, or that I disinfected my breasts daily with the antibacterial soap. Whatever the reason I’m glad it never came back.

During the time of my recurrent mastitis it would have been easy to say that breastfeeding was making me sick and wean my son, but I was convinced of the health benefits of continuing to breastfeed him, despite the mastitis, so continued to do so. I am really happy that our breastfeeding relationship was not cut short by illness, and was able to conclude naturally when both of us were ready.

Filed under: Engorgement, Mastitis, Oversupply, Recurrent mastitis

Comments

One Response to “Six months of mastitis – Maria’s story”

Candace Prosser on May 7th, 2009 3:00 pm

WOW, way to go your mom! I know so many women who caved to bottles in the seventies, my mother-in-law included. She was at a loss when I began to nurse.

It is so great that you perservered. I did as well thru a very horrible bout of mastitis that was very painful.

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