<However you may consider using magnesium
sulphate (Epsom salts) dissolved in an ice cream container of warm water
and ask the mother to submerge her breast in it.  The warm water and the
soaking encourages the milk ejection reflex and the epsom salts work
mysteriously to reduce the oedema.  Mothers I have used this technique
with
love it.>

Denise, please tell us more about the use of Epsom salts (MgSO4) soaks
for breast edema. I had wondered because in my own family of origin
(during the 1930's and '40's) it was used to reduce swelling in other
areas, especially when the swelling had to do with infection, to "draw
out the poisons" and "bring them to a head".

I never had the nerve to try it on edematous mothers because I wondered
whether it would be extremely drying to the skin, especially the skin of
the nipple.

It really isn't so mysterious when you think about it, because the
solution is usually made up to be a supersaturated one (dissolving the
most possible epsom salts that very warm water will dissolve), and
therefore it sounds as if it might somehow  create an osmotic attraction
to induce interstitial fluid to migrate outward through the skin to the
stronger solution, if that is in fact possible physiologically.

How long should the soaks last and has anyone written this up? If it
works as well as you describe, it should be much more widely known, and
someone should be doing some research on it, given the prevalence of
edematous breasts in our culture. I would love to learn more about it.

I could "get into" this much more easily than I can "get into" believing
in the power of cabbage (beyond the power of suggestion and hocus pocus)
since no one seems to be able to explain how and by what means a similar
thing is supposed to happen with cabbage. (No flames from the cabbage
enthusiasts please.)

Jean
**********
K. Jean Cotterman RNC, IBCLC
Dayton, Ohio USA

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