My nipples are so sore and painful from pumping! I thought pumping wasn't supposed to hurt. I have it on either the lowest setting or second to lowest setting. I have the right size etc so I don't know what I am doing wrong.
If you start to develop flu like symptoms goto the doctor. Ended up with Mastitis (which I guess is pretty common) one of my breasts was infected from pumping.
It might not feel good, but it shouldn't be painful. Make sure your flanges are the right size (you might need to get smaller or bigger ones than what came with the pump) You can also put a drop of olive oil on your finger and rub it in the inside of the flange where it touches your skin. HTH!
It always hurt me, part of why I quit a few months after going back to work after ds1. I almost never pumped with ds2, if he needed a bottle, I gave him formula but otherwise just nursed. I have the ameda pump, maybe that's the issue. I hear the medela ones are better
Is the pumping painful because of cracking around the nipple? I exclusively pump and have started to have this problem but mine was due to using too high of suction and pumping every 2 hours. Once pumping started to really hurt I backed off the suction (i was a little too gung ho..) and spaced out pumpings to 3 hours. Also I would start by hand expressing and then pumping for only 5-10 minutes to empty the breast. The moment the milk stopped spraying I stopped pumping. After doing this for a few pumpings the pain got better. Hope I helped... Good luck
I am in the same boat. I just started pumping and I thought it wasn't supposed to hurt.. It hurts worse than breast feeding! I did notice like other ladies said, some kind of lube like olive oil or even a little expressed milk (if your too lazy to get up like me) seems to help.
Re: Pumping hurts?
DS born Dec 10, 2013