Clogged Milk Duct

I was told these hurt like hell but luckily I didn’t get these with Ryden. If I felt one coming on I just made sure he drank out of that boob a couple of times and that took care of it. 

 

But within the first week of Oaklyn being born I got one. It seemed like Oaklyn was going to cluster feed that night so I told Josh to take the first feeding and I would take the second one because I didn’t sleep good the night before. Josh took the first feeding and then Oaklyn ended up sleeping through the rest of the night, which means I woke up soaking wet and engorged. My milk came in over night and my boobs hurt so much. I went to feed Oaklyn and he was fussy and struggling to eat but I didn’t think much of it. 

 

I can’t remember why but Josh started sucking my boob, maybe because they were so engorged and Oaklyn wasn’t eating enough milk. He goes “I’m not getting anything”. Ohhhhh, this is why Oaklyn was so fussy, he wasn’t getting any milk. It was probably a total of two hours we worked to get this clog out. I don’t remember the order we did everything (I was less than a week post partum, hard to remember stuff.) I don’t have a pump, if I’m in a situation I need a pump Josh just sucks them, he likes it and then this way I don’t need to use a pump. He tried sucking them but it hurt too bad so I filled up my haaka with water as hot as I could handle it and epsom salt to try and pull the clog out, it didn’t really work. We decided to try and have the haaka on the boob with the clog and he would suck on the other to force a let down on the other side, it worked. We kept going back and forth between using the haaka and forcing a let down and sucking on the boob with the clog to get the clog out plus heat and massaging on the boob itself. 

 

Finally it seemed to get to a point where all that was left to do was for Oaklyn to suck on it. I knew it was going to hurt but it had to be done. I would let him eat from that side for as long as I could handle it before switching to the other side. I also had a couple of hot baths that day to try to soften the clog. I think by the end of the following day it finally didn’t hurt anymore. I hope that is my one and only clogged duct.