How to soften the areola if your breasts are engorged ('reverse pressure softening')

What if your breasts become engorged?

Your milk usuallly comes in three to five days after the birth. You can find out about this here.

Sometimes women think their milk hasn't come in because they are offering their breasts to baby so frequently that they don't have the experience of engorgement. But in fact, this is very good for their milk supply.

Engorgement is best avoided if you can, by feeding your baby frequently and flexibly from birth, because when breasts run full, feedback loops quickly tell your breasts they are generating too much milk, and your production settings drop.

But for other women, some engorgement becomes a necessary part of dialling down a generous supply which is more than their baby needs. We just need to manage the engorgement so that you're not in pain and so your supply doesn't plummet to become less than baby's needs!

You can find out about engorgement starting here.

It's useful to be able to hand express off some milk if you do become engorged and this seems to make it difficult for baby to come on, or if you're in pain with engorgement, and baby - for whatever reason - can't help you. Make sure that you've woken the baby up and had a go directly at the breast first, though! Undressing a sleeping newborn is a good way to rouse him.

You can find a demonstration of hand expressing here.

How to soften your areola or the breast tissue around your nipple if you're engorged

If your breasts and areolas become engorged, it's also helpful to know that you can use your fingertips or the pads of your fingers, placed around the nipple on the areola and pressing down. Holding them there for perhaps twenty seconds or so helps ease away puffy milk-tight tissue under the areola so that your baby comes on more easily. Move the finger pressure around the areola to cover the whole area.

Demonstrations of reverse pressure softening

• Renee Keogh uses a knitted breast to demonstrate reverse pressure softening of the area around the nipple in the video below.

• You can also see a demonstration by a breastfeeding mother in the video below. The lady in this demonstration video doesn't have severe engorgement or tight tissues around the nipple though.