One breast was heavy, and full of milk. Sore. Painful breast.
One breast was fine, normal, no pain.
You can see in the photo above, how the breast on the left is full and is very round. its sitting higher than the empty breast on the right hand side.
The treatment we suggested was a hot shower and massage just to ease out a little of the milk from the engorged breast. Then she tried some heat packs.
If the pain had been unbearable for her, then we would have expressed some milk out with a breast pump. But this would have meant that her breasts would have made more milk ready for a few hours time, which just would have repeated the problem later in the day. Using a breast pump to relieve engorged breasts should really be a last case resort.
Copyright photo with permission
Return to our main breastfeeding blog
