A mother breast feeding her baby is one of the most natural and useful acts that a mother can do for her child. Breast feeding has a large variety of benefits to offer to the child from building the infant’s immune system, to improving their IQ, to increasing and enhancing the mother child bond, to providing the child with all the nutrients and vitamins that can only be obtained from breast milk. However, one of the accompanying complaints that some mothers have are sore breasts. Nursing can lead to the mother developing painful and sore nipples that can make the nursing process very stressful for the mother. Some of the main causes of sore nipples while breast feeding include mastitis, thrush, cracked or bleeding nipples, plugged duct, milk blisters that develop on the nipples, blanching and engorgement of the breast. All these reasons can make nursing very difficult for the mother. These different kinds of nipple trauma can even cause massive injury to the nipple. You can also read stop breastfeeding tips
Some of the main ways to reduce the pain is to ensure that the mother empties each breast completely while nursing. If the breast is not being emptied while the baby is drinking then it is recommended that the mother use a breast pump or the manual process to do so. Some of the nipple creams that are used by a lot of mothers include lanolin nipple cream or the mothercare nipple spray or Avent moisturizing nipple cream among others. When selecting a nipple cream it is always advisable to refer the matter to a doctor. The doctor will primarily be able to identify the problem that is causing the nipple soreness and accordingly recommend the nipple cream or some alternative solution. It is also essential that when one is selecting a nipple cream one should ensure that it is not alcohol based. Lansinoh is one such nipple cream and literally means lanolin without alcohol. In fact this nipple cream can even be used as a lip balm or for treating diaper rash. Choosing the right nipple cream can be a trial and error process. Sometimes some babies may dislike the taste of the nipple cream and thus stop nursing. It is essential at this time to immediately stop using the nipple cream. Nipple cream can be applied over the sore nipples post each feed and can even be applied before showering. This will prevent the nipples from drying out too much.
Submitted by N on November 9, 2010 at 02:26