Hi all,
This subject really has me thinking. I've been keeping it to myself as I am
so behind but I've had so much personal experience with latch pain (first
minute, let down, and during BF when pregnant) that I have to add my
thoughts and questions:
I think Nikki said:
I suspect that it occurs more often in a primalacta, a woman having her
> first lactation. What do you all think?
I can only add my own experience here. I have 4 kids. I felt first minute
latch on pain with # 1 and #3. I've always assumed that the reason I didn't
feel this with #2 and #4 is because during their pregnancies I was nursing
toddlers. So I thought my nipples didn't have to get used to BF because I'd
never stopped. With baby #3 I had only stopped BF about 3-4 months before
her birth, still, my nipples hurt at latch for 2-3 weeks. I know the latch
was good with this baby because 4 days after her birth I had my friend
Susan Nahman-Serebrnik (Hi susan!) come and check my latch, we turned baby
every which way and it still hurt.
Jean Cotterman, I am loving your explanations of the sinuses and distention
and what hurts and why. I have to spend a long time thinking about this to
get it straight! I'd love to hear your thoughts on the above?
Rachel writes that someone:
"described the transient feeling she occasionally got at
let-down by saying it was like having a length of string looped around
each nipple and then someone pulling outward on the ends."
I always said it felt like someone grabbing my nipples and pulling (AHHH!)
as the milk was letting down, and while this was happenning, I'd see the
sinuses fill and as Nikki describes:
"the breast "balls up and gets hard" briefly "
this MER pain lasted for 1-2 months and with all FOUR babies, so in my
experience, this also is not only with primigravidae.
Finally, I'm really curious, Jean and all, how you explain the pain during
BF while in the last trimester of pregnancy. I was thinking this was the
negative pressure pain that Dr. Newman suggests can be alleviated with
breast compression thereby increasing milk flow, but that wouldn't help
while pregnant because the problem is that there is so little milk flow.
The pain I'm describing is after BF for a few minutes, when the little bit
of milk that is there is gone, and then it feels like the toddler is
causing the sinuses to collapse on themselves and rub inside and it hurts.
But after reading Jean's post:
"IME, milk sinuses in late pregnancy and the first 2-3+ weeks after birth
are relatively overdistended, not empty. This pain comes from positive
pressure, not negative pressure. If compression takes place over the
middle of the sinus, where the walls are conceivably tighter and thinner,
it is quite painful till such time as the overdistention is overcome. I
also visualize these walls as a richly ennervated site where compression
sends a strong signal to elicit the MER."
What do you mean by overdistended? What would cause this, as the sinuses
are pretty empty at this time aren't they? Or maybe if you are pregnant but
NOT nursing a toddler, then they are overdistended = full?
Stretching my mind and my imagination here
Dalia Abrams
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