Mastitis and newborn not wanting to nurse at that breast

[Conifer]

Hi,

My son is 12 days old and yesterday I was diagnosed with mastitis...ouch!
I am on antibodics and resting...going in an out of a fever. DS really hates to nurse from the infected breast. In fact he has been fighting it since before I knew there was a problem!...the last 4 days or so. I think that the flow of the milk is fine, but could the infection be causing my milk to taste bad? He will latch on just fine, nurse for a bit and pop off. Then frantically relatch and pop off again a minute later. He repeats this over and over. When I nurse him on the other side he stays latched and nurses fine. I really want him to nurse on the infected side. I really hate to pump and he does a much better job of emptying my breast which makes me feel a lot better. Any sugestions?...hope?

Thank you!

[PatioGardener]

Aww Mama - mastitis sucks at any time, but only 12 days postpartum is rotten.

Your milk may taste a bit salty on that side - or maybe there is something else that makes baby not take it easily and that is why you got mastitis (not transfering milk well from that breast.)

Herea re some suggestions that may or may not help - but if you feel like it give them a try:

try baby in a different position. Newborns often have sore heads from the birth and prefer to be held in a way that doesn't irritate a bruise/sore spot. The football position may be worth trying ont hat side if you haven't already.

Breast compressions: As baby nurses, use your hand not holding baby to compress your breast to get milk flowing faster. (It's like squashing a big sandwich before taking a bite.)

Watch your hand holding baby to make sure it is not pushing on his head in any way - they usually don't like that and push back/pop off.

let baby latch by himself on that breast - you can get ideas on how to do this from www.breastcrawl.org and www.drjacknewman.com - just check out the videos.

Good luck Mama. Keep taking care to rest, drink enough fluids and hopefully baby will nurse (as pumping isn't fun either!)

[Conifer]

Thank you Patiogardener,

Now that I have been taking the antibodics for a few days, he is much more willing to take that side. I did switch to the football hold as I wasn't draining my whole breast with the cradle hold...so that helped I've also been letting him be more in control of the latch since I notice that it seems to work better in the middle of the night when I can barely see (lol).

[JRMartin]

Sounds like you're on the mend, but thought I would mention this anyway. If you can locate where the clot is in the infected breast, get baby's chin to point right there during nursing. Last time I had a clogged duct at the top right side on my right breast, so I had to nurse him on the bed laying opposite him, which was strange, but it helped a lot!!! Reason being that the effective sucking goes on where their chin/tongue get in on the action, not so much from the top of their mouth.