mastitis? Help quick

[Darlingricki74]

Question for a friend.

Baby is less than two weeks.. She posted today on Facebook about having pain, fever. Left baby with sitter to go to hospital. Plugged ducts, and infection. Gets antibiotic and tylenol 3, told NOT TO BREASTFEED!!! Is that right? I thought you were supposed to bf MORE then????

So she's not bf, she was before she went to the doctor but now thinks she was making the baby sick because she was spitting up yellow clumpyness(said it looked like formula spit up). So she believes the doctor is right that she should not breastfeed. She's not pumping because she said "too sore, it hurts". Said hot shower didn't help. So she is not doing anything to get the milk out, just taking the meds and "hoping" her milk doesn't dry up before she feels better. That's what the doctor told her to do-to not nurse, just take the meds and hope she might still be able to nurse after she's better.

Is it normal/ok for baby to have yellow icky spit up when you have mastitis???

[Lil'M]

Here is the link to Dr. Newman's mastitis information: http://www.drjacknewman.com/help/Blo...20Mastitis.asp

I don't know about the yellow clumpy spit up. But all the reputable sources recommend basically the same treatment for mastitis. I don't know where her dr. came up with the advice she was given, but it is not evidence based nor in line with specialists in breastfeeding medicine.

[Darlingricki74]

Yeah, I found lots of info saying to keep nursing, I just need to know if the spitting up baby thing is normal, she is convinced that the doctor is right and that she was hurting the baby by nursing with the infection.

[harli]

When you get mastitis your milk can get yellowish stringy puss in it. Maybe this is what her baby is spitting up? Your milk composition also changes (this is obvious by the salty taste it can get) THIS WILL NOT HURT THE BABY. And yes baby can get some weird spit up during a bout of mastitis. I've had it with both my kids and I remember them getting weird spit up from it.

Tell her to check out KellyMom's website. It's got great info on mastitis. Also have her make sure she is on the right antibiotics. If that doc gave out such bad advice on the BF'ing he probably doesn't know which meds to give her either. Many doc's will prescribe amoxcicillin (sp?-forgive me it's late ) and it won't treat the most common kind of mastitis. KellyMom's site lists the correct antibiotic's to prescribe under the 'recurring mastitis' article. (ask me how I know this )

[harli]

Also wanted to add that a hot shower won't help her feel better if she's not BF'ing or expressing her milk. The heat from the shower will only stimulate the breast tissue and it will attempt to make more milk which will only get backed up and cause her to get more engorged. With mastitis you should really only use heat before a feeding or pumping session and cold in between feedings.

The old hot shower before a feeding trick works by pushing as much fluid through the breast as possible which helps to push the blockage and infection out. It will only hurt things if she's not draining her breasts.