After mastitis, a seal remains. Consequences of lactostasis: what to do if there is less milk and lumps in the chest appear Drug therapy for lactostasis

Sometimes a breast lump may be found in a breastfeeding woman. Especially often the problem occurs during the first three months of lactation. The main reason for this compaction is milk stagnation, or lactostasis. If you do not immediately begin treatment of the disease, then over time it can develop into a more serious pathology - mastitis.

Causes and symptoms of lactostasis

The main signs of the presence of pathology are:

• single or multiple seals in the chest;
• intense pain in the place where the formation is located;
• inflammation skin, localized in compacted areas;
• an increase in body temperature, indicating the presence of an inflammatory process.

Seal in the gland during the period breastfeeding appears due to the presence of some negative factors:

• constant feeding of the child in one position;
• too thick consistency of milk;
• stress and neurosis during lactation;
• constant pumping of milk.

Experienced mothers know that when feeding, it is necessary to change their position and the position of the child from time to time. If this is not done, then the emptying of the gland occurs unevenly. For this reason, there is stagnation of milk, lactostasis.

Stress and nervous strain can also affect the health of the mammary glands. Therefore, you should control your emotional state during this crucial period. With stress and severe fatigue, spasms of the milk ducts may occur. This leads to milk stasis.

During lactation, it is very important for a woman to ensure that she drinks enough fluids. This is especially true during hot periods, summer. Lack of fluid in the body, dehydration, can cause milk to become too thick and stagnate in the ducts. In addition, its fat content will increase, which is also not very good. It is difficult for a child to suck in thick milk, and blockage of the ducts occurs. All that is needed to avoid this problem is to establish a drinking regimen.

Doctors recommend temporarily forgetting about such a procedure as pumping, as it has been proven that milk in the female breast is produced in the amount that the child needs. Frequent pumping after the end of a feed in order to completely empty the breast leads to the fact that in next time much more milk is produced and stagnation will occur.

Ways to deal with lactostasis

Stagnation of milk in the breast must be eliminated immediately after its detection in order to prevent the development of mastitis.

If the chest hurts with lactostasis, then the following measures can be taken:

1. Before you start feeding, you need to express some milk.
2. Compresses. A cabbage leaf is applied to the sore chest, you can also pre-smear it with cottage cheese and honey. Such compresses will help relieve inflammation and reduce the temperature, therefore, the milk will flow better.
3. Special pharmacy ointments. It is best that the drug is selected by a doctor, but there are a number of drugs that can be recommended to everyone in this situation - these are Malavit, Traumeel A and Arnica.

The treatment some women take can make the situation worse. For example, the use of certain means for rubbing the chest. It is strictly forbidden to use ointments and preparations that contain alcohol for lactostasis and compaction in the gland. This substance easily penetrates the milk ducts and, accordingly, enters the milk that the child drinks.

With stagnation and pain in the chest, a woman should never stop breastfeeding. This will only make the situation worse. In addition, a woman may notice that milk has begun to disappear or its volume has decreased significantly. On the contrary, lactation is the best cure for stagnation. In this case, breastfeeding is the best medicine for the mammary gland.

Consequences of lactostasis

Some women noticed that after lactostasis they still had a seal. The soreness of the mammary glands does not go away either. And this is not surprising, since the breast tissue has been damaged, and the healing process is usually lengthy.

If within a few days the skin remains reddened in the place where the seal was, then this is absolutely normal. You need to monitor your well-being, apply compresses to your chest or take a warm shower. The child should suckle the breast as often as possible, in which discomfort is felt, even if the main signs of lactostasis have already disappeared.

Also during this period, you should slightly limit the amount of fluid consumed. It is recommended to drink no more than 1.5 liters of water per day. It will be useful to exclude salt from the diet for a while so that fluid retention does not occur.

If the body temperature is still holding, then you need to see a doctor. Since this symptom is a sign of mastitis. It is necessary to control the size of the seal in the chest. It’s good if it decreases, but if it’s the other way around, then it’s worth sounding the alarm.

The doctor may prescribe a course of physiotherapy. But if mastitis is suspected, antibiotics are usually prescribed. They are selected according to the situation, because the woman is still breastfeeding.

If more than 14 days have passed, but the seal after lactostasis still remains, and its size has become smaller, then you need to make an appointment with a surgeon. Various studies may be assigned:

• mammography;
• biopsy.

I breast-fed babies-weather for more than three years without rest, in the last six months I often had inflammation in my chest - lactostasis. Mammologist advised to stop feeding. But after that, my lump at the breast still did not resolve, which, moreover, swells during menstruation. What could it be?

Often, when a woman is actively breastfeeding her babies for too long (more than three years), as happened in the case of our reader, the body may not be able to withstand such an excessive load.

This can manifest itself in a wide variety of health problems. As problems with the state of the mammary glands, and with problems of a gynecological nature.

In this case, problems arose in the form of frequent congestion with a diagnosis of lactostasis. Unfortunately, lactostasis (or stagnation breast milk) is incredibly often accompanied by the formation of certain seals in the ducts of the mammary gland.

Of course, it is important to deal with the problems of lactostasis in a timely manner and not to start, preventing the development of mastitis or the so-called inflammation of the mammary gland.

It is quite logical that in a similar situation, when a woman continuously fed for more than three years and periodically faced congestion, the mammologist recommended stopping breastfeeding.

However, as you understand, this could not guarantee the patient the complete removal of already stagnant milk from the ducts or the disappearance of already formed bumps in the mammary gland.

Indeed, in such situations, women may have various kinds of bumps or seals in the mammary gland for a long time, which in the future will have to be constantly monitored, and possibly even treated.

Such patients definitely should not be overly frightened, but it is also absolutely impossible to neglect regular examinations by a gynecologist (mammologist) with ultrasound diagnostics.

Of course, it is important to understand that the most wonderful doctor is nature, which eventually cures at least three-quarters of all existing diseases and does not speak badly about its earthly counterparts.

Usually, the bumps that have arisen during lactostasis can completely resolve over a fairly long period of time, say, within a year, and sometimes two years.

However, even omnipotent nature cannot always cope with such phenomena, and in women, in place of primary stagnant seals, one or another benign tumors chest.

We would not like to speculate with the alleged diagnoses, especially since there can be an incredible variety of them, ranging from diffuse or nodular forms of mastopathy to the development of specific tumors (fibroadenomas, fibrolipomas, etc.).

In any case, to determine an accurate diagnosis (with an understanding of the structure of the seal, its shape and type), it is necessary ultrasound diagnostics or a complete mammogram.

Only a diagnostician can accurately describe the type of seals present, which, of course, will always react in one way or another to certain periods of the menstrual cycle.

And only after such a diagnosis, after understanding the real essence of the problem, one can think about one or another treatment of the seals in the mammary gland. Independence in this situation is completely inappropriate, since it can lead to unpleasant complications of primary problems.

I have always followed these tips:

It is likely that you have milk stasis (lactostasis). It is imperative to take measures to eliminate it, and not wait a few days - it will resolve itself or not.
What helped me:
1. Feed the child from the diseased breast as often as possible, while not forgetting to offer a healthy one as it fills up so that stagnation does not occur in it.
2. Between feedings, ice on the sore spot (will delay pain and stop inflammation). This is if the pain is severe in the chest.
3. Between feedings, make a compress of cottage cheese on the affected lobe. Take cold cottage cheese (from the refrigerator, but not from the freezer!), take a gauze, put it on a sore share, cottage cheese on top and then gauze again. Hold for 15-20 minutes until the curd is heated and dry. Lactic acid breaks down congestion very well.
4. DIRECTLY BEFORE feeding, for 5-10 minutes, put a very warm (but not hot!) Heating pad on the affected lobe - it will help to better open the ducts and improve the outflow of milk.
5. DURING feeding, massage the diseased lobe with a full palm in the direction from the periphery to the nipple. But without pressure, so as not to injure the chest. This will also help improve milk flow.
6. Exclude from your wardrobe all bras with bones and all tight bras - they are very often the cause of lactostasis. Leave only soft cotton nursing bras.
7. Change your feeding position so that lower jaw the child (sucking) fell on the sick share - you can feed from the armpit, hanging over the child on all fours, and so on.
8. You can also express under a warm shower (remember that you need to massage the diseased lobe without pressure, so as not to injure even more), just apply cabbage leaves. I have not used these methods.
9. Remember that the task is not to express as much milk from the breast as possible, but to break through the stagnation, and for this it is usually enough for a drop to come out that clogs the milk duct.
10. If there is a temperature, then it must be brought down, for example Tylenol (or any other means that is acceptable when breastfeeding)
What should never be done:
1. Alcohol and alcohol-containing compresses - alcohol suppresses the production of oxytocin in cells, and thereby suppresses the outflow of milk, while the task, on the contrary, is to improve it and break through stagnation
2. Warming the breast between feedings, doing warm compresses - will cause an influx of milk between feedings, as well as worsen inflammation.
3. Stop feeding from a sick breast
Uff .. It seems that I wrote everything. This scheme was tried on myself three times - three times there were lactostasis with high temperature. All three times I successfully recovered, and I still feed the baby. Good luck and health to you and your baby!

I have always followed these tips:

It is likely that you have milk stasis (lactostasis). It is imperative to take measures to eliminate it, and not wait a few days - it will resolve itself or not.
What helped me:
1. Feed the child from the diseased breast as often as possible, while not forgetting to offer a healthy one as it fills up so that stagnation does not occur in it.
2. Between feedings, ice on the sore spot (will delay pain and stop inflammation). This is if the pain is severe in the chest.
3. Between feedings, make a compress of cottage cheese on the affected lobe. Take cold cottage cheese (from the refrigerator, but not from the freezer!), take a gauze, put it on a sore share, cottage cheese on top and then gauze again. Hold for 15-20 minutes until the curd is heated and dry. Lactic acid breaks down congestion very well.
4. DIRECTLY BEFORE feeding, for 5-10 minutes, put a very warm (but not hot!) Heating pad on the affected lobe - it will help to better open the ducts and improve the outflow of milk.
5. DURING feeding, massage the diseased lobe with a full palm in the direction from the periphery to the nipple. But without pressure, so as not to injure the chest. This will also help improve milk flow.
6. Exclude from your wardrobe all bras with bones and all tight bras - they are very often the cause of lactostasis. Leave only soft cotton nursing bras.
7. Change the position of feeding so that the lower jaw of the child (sucking) falls on the diseased lobe - you can feed from the armpit, hanging over the baby on all fours, etc.
8. You can also express under a warm shower (remember that you need to massage the diseased lobe without pressure, so as not to injure even more), just apply cabbage leaves. I have not used these methods.
9. Remember that the task is not to express as much milk from the breast as possible, but to break through the stagnation, and for this it is usually enough for a drop to come out that clogs the milk duct.
10. If there is a temperature, then it must be brought down, for example Tylenol (or any other means that is acceptable when breastfeeding)
What should never be done:
1. Alcohol and alcohol-containing compresses - alcohol suppresses the production of oxytocin in cells, and thereby suppresses the outflow of milk, while the task, on the contrary, is to improve it and break through stagnation
2. Warming the breast between feedings, doing warm compresses - will cause an influx of milk between feedings, as well as worsen inflammation.
3. Stop feeding from a sick breast
Uff .. It seems that I wrote everything. On myself, this scheme was tried three times - three times there were lactostasis with a high temperature. All three times I successfully recovered, and I still feed the baby. Good luck and health to you and your baby!