What to do if you have short nipples while breastfeeding

Feeding a baby is a particularly distressing thing for new mothers. They are often at a loss when facing a newborn and often lose their temper over trivial matters. For example, they don’t know how to breastfeed, dress the baby properly, or wear diapers, etc. These are all things that require experience and patience. In addition to this, mothers will also encounter a problem that their nipples are short and make it difficult to breastfeed. In fact, short nipples can be improved by massaging them frequently and letting the baby suck more.

Many shorter nipples can develop well during pregnancy, and the condition of short nipples can be significantly improved through the baby's sucking after birth. During pregnancy, women can check their nipples. If the nipples are easy to pull out, it means that they have good elasticity and will not affect breastfeeding after delivery. If the nipple can hardly be pulled out, it may be that the elasticity of the nipple is poor and medical assistance is needed after delivery. If you pull the nipple and it retracts when you let go, it indicates inverted nipple. However, many inverted nipples can be breastfed with help, and truly difficult-to-treat inverted nipples are extremely rare. Some mothers have longer nipples. For these nipples, they can be controlled by simply putting the long nipple together with most of the areola into the baby's mouth.

How to help mothers with poor nipple elasticity and inverted nipples?

First, in the later stages of pregnancy, do exercises to improve nipple elasticity. Place your index fingers above, below, and to the left and right of the nipple, and pull the areola skin and the tissue under the skin up and down and left and right. Repeat this action several times, twice a day, for 5 minutes each time.

Second, let the baby suck the nipple vigorously as soon as possible after delivery. Most nipples with poor elasticity can be improved through correct sucking by the baby.

Third, if the mother's nipples become more inverted when her breasts are swollen, the mother should squeeze out some milk to soften the breasts, which will help the baby suck on the nipples and most of the areola.

It is important to maintain the correct breastfeeding posture. First of all, for flat or inverted nipples, breast care should be done before breastfeeding. You can use the nipple stretching method (pressing the areola from the outside toward the nipple, or pulling out the nipple with your fingers), or using a breast pump to pull apart and separate the fibrous tissue connected to the inverted nipple, so that the nipple protrudes outward and the baby can latch on as soon as possible.