As your milk supply increases, your breasts should feel heavier and full. This normal fullness should not prevent your baby from being able to latch on easily. Your breasts should also be pain-free. Engorged breasts are very hard, and the nipples can flatten due to swelling inside the breasts.
It's normal for your breasts to feel different after your baby is born. They are making milk and have extra blood flow, so they may feel tender and full. But if your breasts are warm, hard, and painful, they may be too full of milk, or engorged.
It is normal for your breasts to feel swollen, heavy, and tender when your milk comes in. This is called breast fullness. When your breast starts to feel painful and hard, the fullness has developed into engorgement. Breast engorgement usually happens 3 to 5 days after you give birth.
Alternate which breast you offer first. Breastfeed often, every 1-2 hours, to avoid severe breast engorgement. Draining the breasts regularly is the best prevention. Poor drainage and unresolved pressure within the breast can damage milk producing cells and reduce your ability to make milk for your baby.
Symptoms of engorged breasts include: Swollen, firm, and painful breasts. If the breasts are severely engorged, they are very swollen, hard, shiny, warm, and slightly lumpy to the touch. Flattened nipples.
You might have to do this for 2 to 4 days before your breasts feel better. If you use a breast pump when you are engorged, pump for short periods of time, 5 to 10 minutes at a time. If you pump for too long, you may make the engorgement worse or last longer than usual.
When milk isn't removed from your breasts, you will produce less milk. Treating engorgement gives your baby more milk now and helps protect milk production for when your baby is older. Engorgement can result in blocked ducts leading to mastitis.
How should I sleep with engorged breasts? Engorged breasts can make sleeping difficult. A person may wish to try expressing some milk before going to bed to make the breasts less painful. Placing cold compresses on the engorged breasts before going to bed may also ease swelling and relieve discomfort.
Reclining. During early days of breastfeeding, engorgement can make your breasts feel sensitive and tender. Sleeping with elevated pillows on a slight recline can assist with this discomfort.
On the whole, breast engorgement is a great reassurance for mothers and lovely feedback to tell her breasts are responding to their newborn's demands, but equally, engorgement is uncomfortable and, if not resolved or if in the presence of feeding issues, can lead to blocked milk ducts or mastitis.
Engorgement vs clogged duct
With a clogged duct, pain and inflammation is confined to a small lump on the breast, while engorgement typically affects a wider area. The lump caused by a clogged duct will often be red, while engorgement is less likely to cause redness on the skin of the breast.
Let your baby feed on the tender breast first. If the affected breast still feels full after a feed, or your baby cannot feed for some reason, express your milk by hand. Warmth can help the milk flow, so a warm flannel, or a warm bath or shower, can help. Get as much rest as you can.
If your breasts become engorged, there are things you can do to relieve the discomfort. The best way to is to empty the breast, either by feeding your baby at the breast, or by expressing your milk.
Breast engorgement is when your breasts are painful, swollen and tender because they're overly full of milk. It occurs most often in the days and weeks after giving birth due to milk production and increased blood supply to your breasts (chest).
How long might it take for engorgement to go away? If you're breastfeeding, breast engorgement may go away within 36 hours. If you're not, it may take approximately 7 to 10 days.
Will I always become engorged overnight? Thankfully no. Give yourself some time (it may only take a few nights), and your breasts will adjust to your baby's new schedule. Of course, like most things with babies, it may not be a step-by-step linear progression.
Pressure from a badly fitting bra or tight clothing can make the discomfort worse, and may lead to blocked ducts and possibly mastitis. Breast engorgement can happen to women who don't or can't breastfeed, as well as those who do.
You can help your partner relieve engorgement (breast fullness) by hand expressing some milk or placing a warm, moist face cloth on her breast for a few minutes before feeding. You can also help during feeding by gently compressing (massaging) her breast.
Some might feed every 90 minutes, whereas others might go 2–3 hours between feedings. Newborns should not go more than about 4 hours without feeding, even overnight.
Discomfort due to engorgement may also be relieved by feeding your baby in more than one position. Try alternating sitting up, lying down, and using the football hold. Gently massage your breasts from under the arm and down toward the nipple to help reduce soreness and promote milk flow.
Use cold compresses
Cold compresses help to reduce breast inflammation, blood flow and milk production. Start with 10 minutes on each breast and work up to 30 if needed. Always take at least an hour break between compresses. This should help ease the pain of full or engorged breasts.
Nurse or express your milk at least every 2 hours, and at least twice during the night. The more milk that collects in your breasts, the stuffier they get and the harder it is for fluids to move. By taking milk out often, you make it easier for all the fluids in your breast – not just the milk – to move around.
For engorgement and mastitis, a further helpful massage technique is to massage the outer sides of the breasts in long strokes up towards the lymph nodes in the axilla (arm pit) and massage the inner sides of the breasts toward the lymph nodes in the center of the chest.
Sometimes breast engorgement is not caused by breast milk and increased blood circulation alone. Other fluids can add to the pressure in the breast causing oedema or swelling particularly in the first week or two after birth.
Releasing a lot of milk will cause your body to produce larger amounts of milk. This can make breast engorgement worse. Gently massage your breasts to help milk flow during breastfeeding or pumping.