Nipple Pain - Common, NOT Normal!

I commonly hear patients, friends, even colleagues confidently stating it is “normal” to have pain with breastfeeding. I am here, as a Breastfeeding Medicine Physician, to say NOPE.

I want to be clear.  Slight discomfort is not unusual, especially in the early days with a newborn - mom and baby are both new at this and have to learn together, hopefully under the watchful eye of someone experienced in lactation care who can give them tips for rapid improvement. 

Also, nipple and breast pain are quite COMMON with breastfeeding. I experienced severe pain, as have many of my patients, friends, and colleagues.  As have many other people you, dear reader, know. I am NOT here to dismiss the lived experience and suffering of these countless mothers. 

But it is time for us to be very clear - pain with breastfeeding should not be considered normal. This leads to dismissing it instead of seeking help to improve the underlying cause. Pain deserves rapid evaluation before nipple trauma and a cycle of worsening events begins.

Pain, particularly if it is worsening or persistent, is a sign that something is wrong. It is a signal your body gives to say hey - something isn’t working here! Maybe you just need a simple positioning change or lactation massage to decrease engorgement. Or maybe something in the complex interplay between anatomy and function in mom’s breast and baby’s head/neck is causing dysfunctional milk extraction. Either way, you need urgent help to improve the situation. 

As physicians, we do not generally dismiss  pain as a ‘normal’ state, even though we may not always fully understand the cause. Ankle pain could mean gout, ankle sprain, infected joint, or a host of other issues. Pain with urination could indicate a common bladder infection, a sexually transmitted infection, or abnormal bladder muscle contraction, for example. I could go on. 

But with breastfeeding, we often grew up with myths like ‘nipples toughen up’, and ‘pain just gets better’. It is high time that breastfeeding and lactation received the same attention to diagnosis and management of dysfunction from all healthcare professionals that other organ systems do.

So if a patient, friend, or colleague is suffering with lactation related pain, then please help them seek care! If the first, second, or even third person isn’t able to help, keep looking. Many situations can be handled by various lactation professionals. Other situations are very complex and benefit evaluation by a Breastfeeding Medicine Physician - more of us are practicing than ever before, and we continue to train more!

If you need skilled lactation care from a Breastfeeding Medicine physician, then contact Dr. Moore to schedule your visit.