When I went to Betty Bowles workshop, she presented this same information on "wound care" of damaged nipples. I have incorporated teaching moms with any cracks or scabs of the nipples to clean daily with gentle soap, and to apply plain triple antibiotic ointment ( not neosporin and not anything with lidocaine)instead of lanolin to the nipples after expressing some of their own milk and "dabbing" it in. My opinion,in many women the lanolin aggrevates the condition. Anticdotally, the moms seem to heal faster, and have less incidence of mastitis. I also use hydrogel sheet dressing, which was recommended by our Wound Care department for 72 hours. The cooling sensation is very comforting, and the healing process is improved. I am very careful however to tell mom's that this is only for 3 - 4 days until the "raw" area on the nipple is healed and the baby is nursing comfortable at breast. Otherwise, I find that they want to continue "wound care" all the time because they are afraid the problem will come back. It's ironic that such common sense care of a skin wound has been so slow to transfer over to "nipple wound" care. *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html