What should I do if my nipple is sucked and bleeding by my baby?

Now that you have given birth, you need to feed your baby with breast milk. Babies who grow up drinking breast milk will have a good physical constitution and will not easily catch a cold or get sick. Some babies use too much force when sucking breast milk, which may cause the mother's nipples to be sucked and bleed. In this case, the mother will feel very painful nipples when breastfeeding the child. Now let me tell you what to do if your nipple is sucked and bleeds by your baby?

If the nipple skin is damaged, bacteria can enter the breast tissue and easily cause mastitis or abscesses. If the baby stops sucking and the milk cannot be emptied, there is a high chance of infection. When breastfeeding after childbirth, be careful to prevent the baby from biting your nipples. Nips are prone to cracking if they are soaked in baby's saliva for a long time, so each feeding time should not be too long, generally 15 to 20 minutes is good; also, do not let the baby sleep with the nipple in his mouth.

Other protective measures include stopping using alkaline soaps, detergents, or applying medicated oils when cleaning the nipples.

Improve the baby's sucking posture and continue to breastfeed the baby. You can start by feeding from the breast on the side that does not hurt. When the feeding posture is improved, the pain will usually improve immediately and the fissures will heal quickly.

During the intervals between breastfeeding, expose the affected nipple to air and sunlight as much as possible. Leaving a drop of after milk on the nipple after each breastfeeding will help the nipple skin heal.

Sometimes, after improving the sucking posture, the pain still persists, or because of breast swelling, the baby cannot get enough milk, which will cause the milk stagnation to worsen. Therefore, the milk needs to be squeezed out before the fissures heal. When nipple rupture occurs, the mother should pay more attention to protection and local hygiene to avoid infection and inflammation.

First, wash the ruptured part of the nipple with warm water, then apply 10% cod liver oil bismuth, or compound benzoin tincture, or grind equal parts of Chinese medicine Phellodendron chinense and Angelica dahurica into powder, mix with sesame oil or honey and apply to the affected area. Wash off the medicine before breastfeeding and protect the nipples with nipple shields or sterile gauze.

If the nipple is severely cracked, breastfeeding should be stopped for 24 to 48 hours; or the milk can be sucked out with a glass breast shield for indirect feeding so that the child does not come into direct contact with the nipple, or the milk can be squeezed directly into a sterilized clean bottle to feed the child.

If there is a wet nurse nearby who has plenty of milk and her baby cannot finish the milk, you can ask her to help feed the baby 1 to 2 times a day. If there is no possibility of supplemental milk, the baby must be fed with additional milk. After doing this for a day, when the wound on one nipple has healed, you should resume breastfeeding immediately.