Breastfeeding has many side effects on your body, but the throes of motherhood and caring for your baby can make you overlook these changes. In fact, pregnancy, childbirth, and everything related can, and typically has, an effect on your body. Breastfeeding modifies the shape and the form of breasts (extreme cases) and causes stretch marks.
Many other effects aren’t as common, as not all women have the same effect. The impact of these changes vary for every woman, so how does one know if the results aren’t healthy? Sometimes you may not know what to expect no matter how many stories you’ve heard from your family and friends.
One Mother’s Experience
For instance, one woman was unable to breastfeed her fourth baby because of acute pain and her nipples seemed to, sort of, disappear. This doesn’t sound very normal now does it? However, she thought it was a part of breastfeeding that she had to go through, so she ignored it until she was extremely uncomfortable.
After visiting the doctor, it turns out that it’s not a healthy breastfeeding side effect. What she was facing was a considerable degree of mastitis, which is an “infection of the breast tissue that results in breast pain, swelling, warmth and redness,” which can also cause fever and chills. Her condition was rather severe, and she needed immediate hospitalization. But, she kept fighting the pain to feed her baby, and the pain just got worse. She was also embarrassed to tell anyone because her nipples were completely inverted. She described it as, “torturous trying to feed a baby from a non-existent nipple. I would cry and dread every feeding. Each time I was left in so much pain, crying and bleeding.” Again, she kept telling herself it was normal and a sacrifice she had to make to breastfeed her little one.
Why she was scared
Apart from embarrassment, this mommy was scared to tell people about her nipple because sometimes an inverted nipple can be a sign of cancer, so finally, she made an appointment with the doctor. After taking some tests and playing the awful waiting game, her results concluded that the damage to her milk ducts was too severe, which had led to a tumor in the scar tissue. Thankfully, her doctors made it clear that they weren’t too concerned just yet, but they did tell her to get a mammogram done and a follow-up every six months. They wanted her to do this just in case the “sludge” they saw in the tests wasn’t cancer.
Here are the woman’s thoughts
After this entire ordeal, she ended up feeling quite upset about the health sacrifices she had to make to do the “right” thing by breastfeeding her babies because everyone says it’s the better option. She never realized that breastfeeding can lead to more than “saggy breasts.” It took a toll on her life, her confidence, and, of course, it made her afraid of the possibility of having cancer. She ended up learning that breastfeeding shouldn’t be so painful, and it shouldn’t cause your breasts to get deformed.
If you have severe mastitis, so that the nipples have been inverted, and are bleeding, please don’t push yourself and ignore it. In fact, if you have any symptom or effect that doesn’t sit well with you or that you’re not aware of; don’t think of it as normal, even if it is! We recommend you paying your doctor a visit, just in case.
