Second time as painful?

[quiero a mi bebe]

Hello, I am due in 10 days with my second. I breastfed with dd1, and am definately breastfeeding with this one. I am a little nervous about the 1st couple of weeks because with dd1 it was very painful for 2 weeks and I cried each time I fed her. The health nurses checked the latch and it looked good and they said that maybe it was because I was soo fair.  Anyways, I'm just wondering if anyone has experienced this and if they did, did it happen again with subsequent pregnancies? Also does anyone have any advice to deal with the pain or make it go away? It was the nipple and outside, I tried lansinoh, it just seemed to take awhile for mi nipple to toughen up.

[MommyMichele]

I had something similar with my first, and no, it didn't repeat with my second, nor with my third.  I nursed my first all the way through my second pregnancy (and another year beyond), but there was a six month break in between weaning child #2 and birthing baby #3.  I mention that because I worried like you when baby #3 was coming, since I had taken a break from nursing, but it was no problem.  I even bought a new tube of Lansinoh in anticipation, and didn't use any of it!

[aricha]

Obviously, everyone is different, and every pregnancy, birth, and post-partum experience is different... but here's my experience: 

I found the first couple weeks painful with all my kids. I also had the midwife and my doula (who is a lactation consultant, too) check the latch and they never saw anything wrong. It helped to get the babies to open their mouth as wide as possible and them "smoosh" them fairly firmly against my breast until they started nursing. But it was still fairly painful (sometimes tear-inducing painful, sometimes just a sharp-intake-of-breath painful)... but after the first, I'd been through it before, I reminded myself that it would pass, and that we'd have lots of good breastfeeding days once we both adjusted to it. 

One thing that no one told me about until after the birth was that with #2 the uterine contractions that come with breastfeeding in the first few days post-partum were definitely more intense with #2. When I mentioned it, they all said "Oh, yeah, that tends to be the case the second time."

Sorry that isn't terribly hope-filled... but through my own pregnancies and childbirth experiences (which were wonderful midwife-assisted water homebirths) I wished that I'd gotten a little more honesty about the challenging parts along with the birth-is-beautiful parts. Overall there was a heck of a lot more beauty than challenge, but I wished my support people had trusted my strength enough to talk with me about the not-so-great parts a little more honestly.

[quiero a mi bebe]

Thanks for your input and advice.  I guess I just have to wait and see.  hopefully it doesn't repeat itself.

[Heba]

Congratulations on your upcoming birth!  Very exciting!

First of all, there is NO correlation between hair/skin tone and breastfeeding!  Perhaps the nurses were just trying to make you feel better, but really it just isn't true so don't worry on it happening again for that reason!  Every baby is different, so things could be very different this time around.

You might like to familiarise yourself with different positions and then try them out - you may find that breastfeeding is more comfortable in some than others.  Many mums have found that laid-back nursing really helps their little ones achieve the best possible latch (it allows their natural latching instincts to kick in in a way that mum-upright positions don't so much).  Look at www.biologicalnurturing.com and click on the "for mothers' tab for description and a video.

Good luck, and please let us know how you get on.

xx

[GoBecGo]

Hi,

I had flat nipples.  That was the main source of my pain.  With DD1 she had a great latch (and i worked really hard to get that, so yay me! LOL) BUT she also had a very high palate and i had flat nipples.  When "erect" they stuck out a cm or two, but in their relaxed state they were totally flat, and i have very large heavy breasts so "forming" the nipple was done against the downward pressure of the weight of the breast, even when i supported it with my hand.  The feeling of the "inside bits" of my nipple being stretched out to fit that high palate were TOE-CURLING for a good 2-3 weeks.  

At the start the first 20-30mins of the feed hurt, but 3 weeks on only the first 5 minutes hurt.  Over the following months i would sometimes have the odd twinge, i assume because her mouth was growing and thus my nipple was being stretched a bit more.  I had to wean at 7months as a thyroid issue bombed my milk and i got bad advice to deal with it, and i did notice that as my milk lessened the pain returned a tiny bit.

I'm fair too BTW, and i second the PP who said it's irrelevant.

Well, i'm 9 months into nursing DD2 and i'm pleased to report that my nipples remembered and the pain this time was gone within a day or two.  :)