Knocked Up – Knocked Over

my journey through pregnancy and hyperemesis gravidarum

Monthly Archives: April 2012


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Chronic Plugged Ducts and How I’m Fighting Them

I think it’s finally time to admit to myself that I’m having an issue with plugged ducts. A plugged duct is when one of the milk ducts becomes blocked and milk can’t exit the breast.  A hard, painful lump can form as the milk backs up.  If the milk isn’t removed, a plug has the potential to develop into mastitis, which is an infection of the breast.  Think fever, chills, nausea, etc.  Plugged ducts are not fun.

I’ve had six instances of plugged ducts in the last month and a half, which is more than I had the entire three and a half years of nursing Gabi.  Twice now, the plugs have been especially exciting because I’ve gotten a bleb along with them.  A bleb is a hardened bit of milk that forms a blister right at the nipple. Once, I got a mild case of mastitis and ended up missing work because of it.  Obviously, there’s something going on.

I brought it up the last La Leche League meeting, and I got some great help.  We really thought together about what kinds of things I notice before a plug occurs.  Here’s what I came up with.  My plugged ducts coincide with:

  • Juan travelling for work
  • Eating fast food
  • Especially wakeful periods for Katie
  • Missed pumping sessions at work
  • Feelings of stress, anger, and disconnect
  • Allowing Katie to roll her lips in for a lazy latch

In doing some online reading, it seems like these items play into the risk factors for developing plugged ducts: sleep deprivation, stress, poor diet, bad latch, failure to remove milk.

Priority number one with all of this is to clear the plug and remove the milk.  Easier said than done.  My old stand-by trick is to lay the baby on her back on bed, turn myself around so that her chin points at the plug, and nurse over her so that her suction and gravity can clear the plug.  Trouble is, that hasn’t worked the last two times.  The resulting let-downs from the nursing just seemed to make the plug worse.

At this point, hand expression seems to work best.  I express most of the milk out (or have her nurse for a while).  Then I start hand expressing very gently over the area.  If you don’t know how to hand express, here’s a YouTube video.  This is an incredibly valuable skill.

Once I get to the point where I can look really closely and see the pore that is clogged (I typically see a bit of white that just isn’t coming out), I gently squeeze on the nipple to work that bit out.  A warm wet washcloth or even getting into a warm bath really helps with this.  Typically, that bit will come out with a POW! and I’ll be able to very easily hand express the backed up milk out.  Massaging at the front of the plug, instead of trying to push it from the back), can also help loosen things up and get it moving.

If you have a clog that you just can’t get out, get help!  Find a lactation consultant.  Ask for help from (dare I say?) your husband.  Don’t let it sit around.  Having a plug long-term is not only really painful, but it can lead to mastitis.

At this point, I’ve got my plug clearing routine down.  But how do I keep from getting them in the first place?

Here’s what I’m doing to try to prevent plugs from forming:

  • Removing milk often (as in, no more skipping pumping sessions)
  • Taking a lecithin supplement
  • Trying to eat healthier, whole foods
  • Paying careful attention to Katie’s latch
  • Taking a few minutes each day to relax and have some time for myself

So far, this seems to be helping, but I think to a certain extent, the occasional plug may just be part of my landscape right now with my oversupply.  I’m okay with it happening once every few months, but I’m looking forward to a few plug-free weeks.

Here are some more resources that I found on plugged ducts.

Have you had plugged ducts?  How did you deal with them?  Do you have any tricks for getting rid of them?


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Naturally Dyed Easter Eggs – The Answers

Last week, in celebration of Easter, Gabi and I dyed eggs using food-based ingredients.   Here’s a quick link in case you missed that post.  It was so much fun and a few of the colors were so surprising that I decided to make a game of it and let you guess which ingredients produced which colors.

Here’s that list of dye ingredients again:

  • Spinach
  • Beets
  • Turmeric
  • Purple Cabbage
  • Yellow Onion Skins
  • Blueberries
  • Paprika & Chili Powder

And here’s that picture with the numbered eggs:

Which egg is which?

 

I had a few people guess in the comments and several guess in real-life and via email.  So here are the answers!

# 1 - Onion skins. I love how the membranes of the onions left that pretty pattern on the shell.

#2 was blueberries. Look at the polka-dots left behind where the berries rested against the eggs!

#3 was spinach. I think if I had processed the spinach in a blender I might have gotten a greener color. But it's still so soft and pretty.

#4 was a blend of paprika and chili powder. Juan said that this one looked like marble.

#6 was beets. This one actually changed pretty significantly as it dried. It turned into a beautiful green and purple marbled effect which you can almost see in this picture.

#6 was turmeric. I loved how speckled this turned out!

#7 was purple cabbage. This one was such a pretty surprise! Who knew that the purple cabbage would turn blue!

I hope you all had a wonderful week this week!  Happy Easter, happy spring!


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Wordless Wednesday – Sitting Up

 The ability to sit up unassisted coincides with the closing of the gut in infants, which is why it’s an important milestone to wait for before introducing solids.

More info 

SAMSUNG


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Easter Eggs, Naturally! – and a game

I loved dying Easter eggs when I was a kid.  I loved the colors.  I loved the weird smell of the dye.  I loved eating them afterwards and feeling so lucky when I got one where the shell had cracked and the white was tinted a nifty color.  Easter eggs are so much fun.

I haven’t dyed Easter eggs in years!

This year, I decided it was time to start passing that tradition along to Miss Gabi.  But, like many of the things I’ve done over the last year and a half, I decided to see if there was a natural way to dye the eggs.  As it turns out?  There absolutely is!

This year, we dyed eggs with things in our pantry!

It was surprisingly easy.  Sure, it took a bit more work than the PAAS kits, but only a bit.  I just hard-boiled my eggs, researched my ingredients, dumped them into jars, and made my dye.

Here’s how to dye the eggs:

  1. Put a handful of the ingredient into the bottom of a large mason jar.
  2. Pour boiling water over the ingredient to fill the jar.
  3. Allow the ingredient to steep in the hot water until the water cools (several hours).
  4. Place the eggs in the jars and poke them right down to the bottom.  The dye will overflow, so do this over the sink.
  5. Leave them overnight in the fridge.
  6. Pull them out in the morning and take pictures to show your friends on the internet.

Pretty!

These turned out so well.  The colors are so soft and the various ingredients I used to dye gave a pretty marbled appearance.

Here’s a shot of the jars of dye in action:

From left to right we have: onion skins, paprika & chili powder, blueberries, beets, turmeric, spinach, and purple cabbage.

I probably would’ve gotten darker colors if I had boiled the dye ingredients for some time instead of just steeping them and letting them cool right away.

The Game – Guess which Dye made Which Egg

Gabi and I had such fun finding out what colors the dyes made.  There were some real surprises in there!  See if you can match the eggs to their dyes!

Here are the dye ingredients again:

  • A. Spinach
  • B. Beets
  • C. Turmeric
  • D. Purple Cabbage
  • E. Yellow Onion Skins
  • F. Blueberries
  • G. Paprika & Chili Powder

Here’s a shot of the eggs, numbered to make it easier:

Leave your answer in the comments.  Next week, I’ll post the answers and you can see if you got them right!

Happy Easter everyone!

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