The difference between mastitis and milk blockage

Pregnant women will enter the lactation period after giving birth, during the process of feeding breast milk to their babies. Usually, a variety of factors may cause breast blockage in pregnant women, resulting in milk duct obstruction. In severe cases, it may also cause mastitis. These conditions are not good for pregnant women. So what is the difference between mastitis and milk duct obstruction?

There are often various reasons for milk blockage

The first is the internal factors: breast hyperplasia, the mass compresses the mammary ducts, causing the flow of breast milk to be slow and stagnant in the mammary ducts. The water in the breast milk is absorbed, and the breast milk becomes thicker and more difficult to flow, resulting in immediate milk stasis. Another reason is that the waste products of mammary metabolism cannot be completely metabolized, and the mammary wall is thickened and the squamous epithelial cells in the mammary wall fall off, causing the mammary ducts to become narrow and leading to milk stasis.

The second is external factors: some mothers have too much milk, eat too much, and do not pump it out for a long time, resulting in excessive fat content in breast milk, which leads to congestion. It is also said that due to the mother's depression, frequent anger and other liver qi stagnation, as well as fatigue, poor sleep quality and other reasons can also cause repeated blockages.

The main symptoms of milk blockage in pregnant women are breast pain and lumps caused by milk accumulation in the breasts, which in turn cause fever, breast swelling and other symptoms in pregnant women. Milk blockage occurs because the milk is not discharged promptly and stays in the breast for a long time. Since the volume of the breast is relatively limited, the milk can easily clump in the breast and cause breast blockage.

If a pregnant woman suffers from mastitis, it will be much more serious than milk blockage. Mastitis is caused by the accumulation of milk and the injury and infection of the nipple, which will immediately make it easier for bacteria to invade, causing varying degrees of damage to each gland duct in the breast, leading to inflammation and mastitis. Moreover, mastitis is also accompanied by flu-like fever symptoms, which causes a rapid decline in all aspects of the pregnant woman's physical fitness.

In order to effectively prevent the occurrence of milk blockage and mastitis, pregnant women should not only pay attention to their own health, but also feed their babies regularly and quantitatively while breastfeeding to avoid irregular feeding which affects the secretion and discharge of milk, and minimize the possibility of milk blockage or breast inflammation.