I saw a mom who is fully breastfeeding her three month old, who is
gaining beautifully and looks wonderful, but the mom has had several
painful incidents, unfortunately I this is my first contact with her, so
I don't know exactly what has happned up til now.
I'm having a hard time trying to describe in words exactly how this
nipple looks. From my conversation with her on the phone it sounded like
yeast, but when she mentioned that her breast was red I felt I had to see
it "in real life" to get a better sense of what was going on.
The red areas were not on the breast; the right areola was quite red and
angry looking in a circular area radiating from the nipple. The baby
makes quite a bit of noise while nursing and the positioning wasn't
terrific, so I helped mom with that. she's been using some antifungal
preparations on her nipples. but the redness has gotten worse.To me, it
doesn't look like positional soreness; the red area looks kind of thick,
the way a bad diaper rash can look (esp. the fungal kind). Yesterday some
areas were bleeding. Can yeast cause bleeding? (That's something I would
associate more with positioning problems). Mom used nystatin cream, and I
believe a miconazole gel from England (we're in Brooklyn, NY but a friend
gave this to her!) but as I say, the redness has gotten worse.
Any ideas what this could be?
TIA for your help.
Pearl Shifer, IBCLC