Mastitis
I’ve heard the word mastitis pronounced a variety of ways by many different people, but the only thing I know for sure about this breast infection is that it hurts, hurts, hurts.
It’s hard to imagine that anything bad could happen to your body when you’re making the sacrifice of breastfeeding your baby, but mastitis is something that a lot of nursing moms deal with. I dealt with one bought of this infection, and it was when my daughter was around seven months old. From what I hear, mastitis is a lot more common in women nursing newborns, but I’m proof it can happen later on.
I knew something was wrong when I first noticed a red blotch of skin on my breast and started feeling some flu-like symptoms. I had body aches and a fever, and then when nursing started to hurt I figured it was time to head to the doctor. She took one look at my breast and said, “Yep, you have mastitis.” She gave me a prescription for antibiotics and urged me to keep nursing aggressively on the infected breast because not emptying it out would be one of the worst things I could do for my recovery.
Nursing with mastitis hurt a lot, but it felt really great to relieve the pressure. I have a friend who initially ignored her mastitis and wound up having to get her breast drained. I didn’t get the full details, but from what she told me there was a needle involved. Ouch! Don’t ignore the signs of mastitis, such as breast tenderness, a red spot on your breast, body aches, and all that jazz. It’s much better to be safe than sorry because you don’t want to wind up like my friend and have a needle anywhere near your nursing breast.
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