Barbara, you stated:
>You know, I listened to the presentation at ILCA year before last, and
> thought it sounded reasonable to put hydrogel packs on nipple fissures,
but
> in practice it is not working well for my clients.  Let me share their
> common response:  it feels too moist, stays too tender, and doesn't feel
as
> good as if nipples air out.  Last time I tried it on a woman who had
equally
> sore nipples on both breasts. I asked her to use the hydrogel on one side
> and lansinoh on the other.  The lansinoh side healed so much more quickly
> that in 36 hrs she was unwilling to continue to use the hydrogel (that
sided
> was still sore.)  She was pumping the whole time, so we were just looking
at
> healing time, not re-traumatization.
>
> I am curious to heal what other people's outcomes are with use of
hydrogel
> dressings.
>
> Barbara Wilson-Clay BSEd., IBCLC
> Private Practice, Austin Texas
My own experience has been just the opposite. I use the very thin hydrogel
dressings and only when correct positioning, painting with breast milk, etc
have not resolved the problem. Often times the mom was ready to stop
breastfeeding or had already stopped, was pumping and bottle feeding. In
the past year I've probably used this 5-6 times, all with great success.
Most of my cases have been 2nd or 3rd babies, mom didn't call early enough
because she thought she should know how to resolve the problem( I've
adjusted some of my in-hospital teaching to address this). Most often, baby
had an extremely strong suck that exacerbated a problem probably caused by
poor positioning. I would have mom stop breastfeeding for 2-4 days, use the
hydrogel dressings, and bottle feed EBM with Av--- nipple. We had no
trouble getting baby back to breast, in fact, moms reported babies' suck
was gentler after bottling a few days. It seemed that they were forced to
tone down their suck when taking the bottle, or risk drowning.
Sorry, got off the track, and know I'll get some flack for using the
bottles-but it worked.
Mary A. Banaszewski RN, Lactation Specialist
(Hoping to put IBCLC here once the test results are in)
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