We get it: You used to grab your shoes, iPhone, and keys and go. Now you’re exercising with a baby in tow, which can seem slightly more complicated—but it doesn’t have to be! Sometimes you just need to have the right gear on hand to get out the door. From running to biking to going on long hikes, here is the stuff you’ll need to keep up your active lifestyle.
Jogging Stroller
No, you can’t use your Bugaboo or your City Mini. As lovely as those strollers are, you will trip and fall on your face! Jogging strollers are built with more space for your legs so you don’t feel encumbered, and a fixed front wheel that won’t spin around on you as you’re in the middle of your groove. Splurge: The Thule Urban Glide 2.0 jogging stroller is a compact stroller that will give you an easy jog and your little one a smooth ride. Save: The Graco Fastaction Fold Jog Stroller gives you all you need: a place to put the baby and enough room to jog at your own pace.
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Baby Carrier
When possible, ditch the stroller entirely and go hands free! With a supportive baby carrier, you can do everything from bouncing your clingy baby around the house to taking a family stroll in the park with the pup in tow. Splurge: Definitely the most popular of carriers, the Ergo Baby Carrier allows you to carry the baby from birth (with infant insert) to the time he’s a toddler. You can carry on your front or back, which helps when the baby gets to be heavy! The numerous straps support mom’s back and keep the baby cozy and safe. Save: The Boba Wrap can be tied numerous ways. Though it’s ideal for newborns, some moms like to use this with older children as well. Some find, however, that once their kid gets to a certain weight, this wrap doesn’t provide the back support they need.
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Babe-Carrying Backpack
These packs are for the super-active mom who isn’t going to let having a baby keep her from hiking a mountain. Splurge:Deuter’s Kid Comfort allows you carry a toddler in style and comfort and is ergonomically designed to support your spine while you do your thing. As a bonus, it’s super supportive for both kid and mom. Save: The Baby Backpack Cross Country Carrier has a lightweight aluminum frame (because your kid is heavy enough), allowing you to tote your little one all over the zoo, fairground, or campsite. Plus it has a sun visor to boot.
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A Great Sports Bra
Obviously your boobs aren’t what they once were. In the months after delivery, they’re likely bigger and more cumbersome, which can be an impediment to working out. As the postpartum period wears on, they may start deflating on you, leaving you needing more lift than ever. And there’s nothing worse than feeling like your girls aren’t properly supported when you’re jogging, dancing, lifting weights, or even just walking around Target. Splurge: The Enell Sport is designed to lock the girls down. This workhorse isn’t as beautiful as less functional bras, but as the product description asserts, it’s “a critical piece of athletic equipment that answers the prayers of well-endowed athletes.” Save: Glamorise Women’s No-Bounce Bra is built a little more like a traditional bra with a hook in the back, but with mesh, breathable panels to keep you from getting too sweaty. Again, it won’t be stocked by slinky lingerie shops any time soon, but when you’re postpartum and on the move, you need the support.
It’s the bane of every new mom’s existence: sleep. Or, more accurately, the lack thereof. A major lack thereof in some cases, for months (or even years).
Second to the pain of not sleeping? Getting 1,000 mixed messages about how to deal with your baby not sleeping. Should I let him cry it out? (Or is that too traumatic?) Should I rock her until she’s asleep? (Or is that creating a bad habit?) Should I sit in the room? Should I leave him alone to learn to self-soothe? iStock.com/Halfpoint
When some people hear baby sleep training, they immediately think of the Cry It Out Method. But the truth is, there are as many approaches to baby sleep training as there are babies, and that amount of choice can be incredibly overwhelming, especially when you are so, well, sleep deprived. The most important thing to keep in mind? It is possible to do what’s best for your baby and for your family. Don’t let anyone make you feel bad or guilty for the choices you make.
How does sleep deprivation affect you?
Not sleeping is no joke—any new parent can tell you how utterly debilitating it is. It impacts every single part of your life. It robs you of your ability to think clearly and to remember things. It weakens your immune system and your reflexes, making you more accident prone. It increases your risk of diabetes and heart attacks and lowers your sex drive. It can also cause depression and anxiety. Lack of sleep can even contribute to the complex recipe for postpartum depression. iStock.com/LSOphoto
In other words, everything is harder when you’re not sleeping.
But the sleep deprivation of early motherhood will end one day. Eventually, your little one will sleep through the night. Your new normal might be a 6 a.m. wake up, but that will seem like heaven after being up every hour all night long!
Why is getting baby on a sleep schedule good for mom and dad?
You still matter! That’s the short answer.
The longer answer is this: We all need time to refuel, and this is virtually impossible when there is zero time set aside for you.
“Having a baby on a schedule”—more on that below—“allows parents to have a life,” explains Kiri Gurd, PhD, MSC, sleep consultant at Baby Sleep Science, a sleep resource center that offers private consultations, educational materials, and a sleep app. “If your baby only naps in the stroller or the car, you’re not using that time to recuperate, sleep, or do an activity that feeds you.” Likewise, if you’re spending four hours a night struggling to get your baby to sleep, you have no time for adult activities—like couple’s time or going out with friends. [pullquote align=”center”]“Taking a more systemic approach to sleep—thinking of it as one would nutrition—is helpful. You wouldn’t deny yourself food! It’s so important for the health of the family.” —Kiri Gurd, PhD[/pullquote]
If you feel guilty, know this: “Sleep is as important to babies as food,” explains Gurd. “And more research shows that lack of sleep is an indicator for disease, anxiety, and depression in mothers.” She encourages moms to think about what exactly they’re feeling guilty about—the fact that the baby is crying? That she’s taking a shower when she should be gazing at the baby? There are lots of different stressors, she explains, including mom being depressed. iStock.com/Suriyapong Thongsawang
She says, “Taking a more systemic approach to sleep—thinking of it as one would nutrition—is helpful. You wouldn’t deny yourself food! It’s so important for the health of the family.”
Still, Gurd understands that moms have guilt about doing anything for themselves, but argues that they do not need to justify it. “If you need a rationale, I’d say it makes you a better mom. Having free time is not a luxury; it’s a requirement.”
Learning to sleep is a skill.
“Sleep training options are generally perpetuated in a binary way,” Gurd explains. And the rhetoric around that binary often deals in great extremes: “Either you do cry it out and your baby will cry forever, or you’ll co-sleep until they’re 9.” In reality though, your options for teaching your little one to sleep are much more varied—and don’t mean crying forever or bedsharing until middle school.
Gurd and the team at Baby Sleep Science don’t espouse conforming to one method. They lead by what is developmentally fair for the child, based on the science of sleep. “Sleep is so particular to each family,” she explains. “If you don’t feel comfortable with the method you’re using, you won’t be consistent, so it won’t work.” iStock.com/globalmoments
She explains that some discomfort—as well as mom guilt—is often alleviated if families understand the science of sleep and the baby’s brain development, but the bottom line is this: We can teach kids to sleep, and we should.
Here’s why: We help our kids learn a number of skills in their lives—to eat, sit, stand, walk, read, write. “When they learn to ride a bike, we don’t just give them a bike and say, ‘Good luck!’” Gurd says. “Or, conversely, if they fall off the first time they try, we don’t say, ‘You clearly can’t do this.’”
“Learning to sleep is like learning any new skill,” she explains. “It’s both psychological and physiological. To learn to [linkbuilder id=”6639″ text=”fall asleep”] on our own requires that the body learns a series of steps that move us into a more relaxed state.” That’s the physiological piece. Psychologically, a baby needs to understand, for example, that she’s safe in her crib. [pullquote align=”center”]“You’re teaching them a healthy habit. They are sad and confused and you’re going to help them through it, like you will with a million things in their life.” —Kiri Gurd, PhD[/pullquote]
And yes, oftentimes there’s resistance to sleep training, which usually means the baby cries. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. “Our discomfort is with the emotions,” Gurd says. “But if you’re doing a method you believe in, that’s biologically sound at an appropriate age, you’re teaching them a healthy habit. They are sad and confused and you’re going to help them through it, like you will with a million things in their life.”
Jane Rosen, PsyD, MA, PhD, and director of a preschool in Los Angeles, concurs. “When parents start to sleep train, it’s often the first time they’re setting a limit, which is hard,” she says. “It’s the beginning of parenting in a much different way.”
How do I know my baby is ready to sleep train?
“The first thing to guide sleep training is the developmental age of child,” Gurd explains. “We can’t do it at 4 or 5 weeks—the child doesn’t have the neurological capacity.” Generally speaking, babies experience a cognitive surge around 4 months, Rosen says. Most parents experience this as the dreaded four-month sleep regression, when all hell breaks loose and whatever schedule you’ve established falls apart. iStock.com/NataliaDeriabina
Many sleep consultants begin sleep training at this point because babies are developmentally capable of self-soothing—and they are finally sleeping in sleep cycles. The American Academy of Pediatrics’ Healthy Children website notes that babies do not have regular sleep cycles until they’re about 6 months old, so some professionals recommend waiting a bit longer to start working on some form of sleep training.
In other words, when your baby starts waking up during what had formerly been a long stretch of sleep at night—whether it was 4 or 8 hours—it’s time to start teaching him to sleep.
But I’m scared to sleep train! What if she doesn’t stop crying?
It’s normal to feel nervous about sleep training. It is almost impossible to expect your child not to cry when you suddenly start, say, putting her down at 7 p.m. and leaving the room rather than rocking her for hours upon hours. [pullquote align=”center”]“The baby had you sleep trained, and now you’re changing it up. That’s not harmful.” —Jane Rosen, PsyD, PhD[/pullquote]
That said, “every change is accompanied by crying,” Rosen says. “The baby is fussing and saying, ‘I don’t like this.’ The baby had you sleep trained, and now you’re changing it up. That’s not harmful.”
Given that there will be crying or screaming for a few consecutive nights, “you need to be at point where this is worth it,” Gurd says. “If you’re so tired already, it makes the process harder because you’re already feeling really messed up.” iStock.com/Halfpoint
She suggests starting sleep training before you’re completely out of your mind with sleeplessness. “Once you see that stretch of sleep go awry at 4 months, that’s a good point to start [laying the foundation].” At 6 months old, a baby can be trained to sleep through the night (but not so at 4 months when they’re still not developmentally ready).
How much should my baby be sleeping?
According to experts at Baby Sleep Science, the following amounts of sleep are developmentally appropriate for baby:
Newborn to 4 months
A newborn doesn’t have a schedule yet, so your main goal is to just surrender to her “schedule.” Let her eat, sleep, and play on demand. The key thing is to not let the baby get overtired or keep her up too long. Naps: 4 to 5 naps, on demand Total Sleep: 15 to 16 hours within a 24-hour period (unfortunately not all at once!)
4 to 6 months
A schedule is revealing itself! Hooray! Baby shouldn’t be up for longer than 2 to 2½ hours between naps. During this time, you should try to have the baby sleep in the same place for naps and bedtime, says Rosen. No more moving the baby around wherever you go. Naps: 3 naps, with the third being the shortest Total Day Sleep: 3 to 4½ hours Total Night Sleep: 10 to 12 hours
6 to 9 months
Baby’s schedule should be becoming more set in stone. During this phase, baby usually drops one nap, moving from 3 to 2 naps a day. Naps: 2 naps Total Day Sleep: 3 to 4 hours Total Night Sleep: 10½ to 12 hours
9 to 15 months
Most babies sleep through the night at this point. They usually drop one of their two naps around 12 months, taking just one nap a day through toddlerhood. Naps:1 nap Total Day Sleep: 3+ hours up to 12 months, then down to 2 to 2½ hours after their first birthday Total Night Sleep: 10½ to 12 hours
Tips for Getting Your Baby to Sleep
Create sleep cues.
Five of them, to be exact, according to Gurd. Sleep cues are actions that are repeated every night, exactly the same way. They become cues that teaching your baby she’s about to go to sleep. These happen after bath time and pajamas. An example would be:
iStock.com/DNF-Style
Note that these should only take 15 minutes in total—any longer than this and the baby won’t associate them with sleep. This applies for slightly older kids, too, but again, keep it short because a 2-year-old will just assume you’re onto another fun activity and not register that these actions are connected to sleep if they take too long.
Don’t vary bedtime—or wake time.
Performing the same rituals is important, but so is sticking to the clock. “Keep bedtime and wake time within a 30-minute window,” says Gurd. Obviously things will come up, but just like adults, babies sleep better when they do it around the same time every night.
Rosen recommends that kids up to age 5 go to sleep as close to 7 p.m. as possible. Once you start pushing the cortisol levels by keeping them up later, all hell breaks loose. In other words, your fantasy that keeping your baby up late will make her sleep in? That’ll backfire. iStock.com/a_crotty
That said, Gurd and the folks at Baby Sleep Science believe that while being overtired (as well as under-tired!) can make it more difficult for a child to fall asleep and stay asleep during the first part of the night, as long as their schedule is age appropriate, there is no “right” bed time—early or late. Bed times, they say, can vary from family to family—just not night to night!—depending on what works best for baby’s family and their lives. As Gurd says, “I have a family putting their 1-year-old to bed at 10 p.m. and waking at 9 a.m., and that’s totally healthy.”
Be realistic about your expectations.
Understanding how much a baby should sleep at any given phase of development will go a long way toward setting realistic expectations. A lot of baby sleep sites will tell you that sleep begets sleep. [pullquote align=”center”]“Sleep begets sleep up until the limit of your sleep.” —Kiri Gurd, PhD[/pullquote]
This is true on some level, “but there’s only a certain amount of sleep any person can do in a 24-hour period!” says Gurd. “Sleep begets sleep up until the limit of your sleep.”
When you’re looking at averages—i.e., a 12- to 18-month-old will sleep between two and three hours during the day—consider that this is a big spread in terms of age and hours of sleep. So within this six-month age range, the 12-month-old will nap longer and more often than the 18-month-old.
Create the right sleep environment.
Babies are a lot like us: They need a peaceful environment in which to rest. In fact, research shows that we all sleep best in a room that is dark, cool, and quiet. This means a few things: iStock.com/NataliaDeriabina
Don’t overdress the baby. If she’s too hot, she won’t sleep well. (It’s also associated with SIDS.) Make sure she’s sufficiently covered, but know that a cool nose or fingers are fine. If baby seems flushed or is sweating, she’s overdressed.
Make the room dark. Really. This is what blackout curtains are for! You can use small nightlights, but keep them far from the child and opt for orange hues.
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Yes, it would be ideal if your little one could sleep anywhere, but after about 4 months old, this is not ideal. You want your child to rest in a peaceful, calm room and learn that sleep is a sacred act that happens in one place. If the room isn’t quiet (city dwellers will probably hear noise from the street), consider using a noise machine with a constant sound (rainfall or waves), and keep it on all night, not just for the time when baby is drifting off to sleep. This will help him go back to sleep if he’s suddenly woken. Remember, too, that from 4 months on, babies have a tremendous fear of missing out. They used to cry because they were wet or hungry—now they cry because they want company and fear not being invited to the party. FOMO: It starts early.
Be consistent.
Babies, like adults, thrive on consistency. Once you establish a sleep routine, stick with it. Babies will be confused if they’re being rocked to sleep one night and left to cry it out the next. Older children will try to slip through whatever loophole you leave. (“But Mommy! You rubbed my back last night! I can’t fall asleep without it now!”)
Use a transitional object.
A blankie (for an older baby), a bear, whatever—preferably something that smells like mommy or daddy—should be incorporated into baby’s nighttime routine. It helps them not feel quite so alone and helps them associate an object with restful slumber.
And most importantly, follow this piece of advice.
“If I could give one gift to a new mom, it would be this: Don’t worry about bad habits,” says Gurd. [pullquote align=”center”]“Keep your baby safe, help him sleep. Just enjoy your baby.” —Kiri Gurd, PhD[/pullquote] iStock.com/staticnak1983
“Keep your baby safe, help him sleep. Just enjoy your baby. I wish them less anxiety about it all.” She adds that this culture of shaming moms for creating “bad habits” is detrimental to mothers.
“Newborn babies want to be held to sleep—and that’s not the end of world!”
One evening when my daughter was 2, I pulled out a duffel bag I’d been storing under the bed since I got pregnant. It was my secret stash of clothing, the ones I’d return to when I lost the baby weight: my favorite jeans, my pre-breastfeeding-sized t-shirts, my thongs. But I wasn’t taking it out to try the clothes back on. I was taking it out to give the clothes away. There came a moment, I don’t know exactly at what point, when I realized I just wasn’t going to return to my pre-baby weight. It dawned on me slowly and then—BAM!—it was clear as day. I assumed I would lose all the baby weight quickly because I shed a chunk of weight early on, simply out of circumstance: I had gestational diabetes, so because of a strict diet during the last trimester of pregnancy, I gained almost no weight. If I stuck to that same diet post birth, maybe it would all be gone soon! But then it slowed. Because I was back to my old eating habits and worse given that I was breastfeeding and sleep-deprived, chocolate at 10 a.m., burgers and fries, muffins and cookies, and more meant I never got rid of the last bit. Now it’s been almost five years, and I’m quite sure that unless I get very strict with myself, I will never return to those pre-baby looks. But honestly? I’ve learned to not care so much. I mean, of course I do care. Don’t we all want to look the way we did at our most fit? I was a dancer and a yoga teacher. I could eat whatever I wanted and still burn the calories off. I could have fries and wine for dinner and fit into my size 26 jeans! And I thought it was all genetics! Ha! No longer. The problem is not that I can’t. The problem is that I’ve been told that I should: that I should be able to return to my old weight, that I should want to, that I should care about no longer looking that way. In fact, for many women, their primary obsession once the baby comes out is losing weight. But is this really fair? Does this make us feel good about ourselves? These days, whenever I have a negative feeling about my body, I try to stop myself from going down a rabbit hole. You grew a human, I whisper to myself. You fed her. You’ve changed. And: You’re getting older. Letting go of being my “ideal” weight is a little like letting go of the fact that I’ll never be 32 again. It isn’t sad—it’s part of growing up. Now, I’m not saying throw in the towel! No way! I work out multiple days a week. I eat well. I want to look and feel good. But “good” (or “skinny”) is different now than it was then—and not just because of my weight, but because of all sorts of other things: lack of time, more self-confidence (regardless of what the scale says). I could, of course, work super hard and get super skinny. But at what cost, exactly? Not enjoying my food? Not indulging once in a while? Working out when I could be writing, or spending time with my family, or—heaven forbid!—resting? After years of obsessing about whether I’d ever lose that last 10 pounds, I’ve decided it’s not worth it to me—and this isn’t the same thing as not caring about my appearance. It means that losing the last 10 pounds cannot be the anchor around which I rule my life.
Here is my advice for dealing with your (beautiful) post-baby body: Eat well. A fabulous nutritionist once told me to think of it in these terms: 80/20. 80 percent of the time you eat well: healthy foods in healthy proportions; 20 percent of the time, though, you indulge, so you don’t feel deprived and “act out,” eating half a box of cookies at 11 p.m. when the kids are in bed. Exercise as much as you can. And make sure it’s something you find enjoyable, even if that means just taking a super long walk pushing the baby in the stroller. Enjoy your kid. You’re amazing for having grown her inside your body. And as a wise shrink once said to me, “Enjoy your life, sweetheart.”
Kelly Smith worked for years to get pregnant. When her twins finally arrived, she knew she would breastfeed them—but she had no idea how intense that would be. “I was an overproducer so even after feeding twins,” she explains, “my boobs would still be engorged.”
She faced a terrible cycle: She just wanted to empty her breasts, but if she pumped, it stimulated more milk production. So she basically had to ignore the engorgement, which led to chronically clogged milk ducts.
“I’d get hard walnut-sized nuts. In a regular breast, you’d think, Oh my God, I have cancer.” She’d spend the next 24 hours touching her boob and trying to massage out the clogged duct with her thumbs, an electric toothbrush, or a vibrator. An electric pump was too stimulating, so she used a hand pump in the shower, while the hot water worked to break up the clogged duct.
Kelly, of course, knows how lucky she was to be able to breastfeed her babies, but there was a downside to being chronically engorged for 14 months—other than the sheer discomfort and the many, many experiences with clogged milk ducts.
“You can’t talk about it because you’re an overproducer,” she explains. “Everyone is complaining about being an under-producer. Even my lactation consultant would say, ‘You should thank your lucky stars,’ and I’d think, No, I’m in horrible pain all the time.” Your experience may not be this extreme, but clogged milk ducts are not uncommon. “50 percent of the women I work with develop this during their breastfeeding journey,” explains the L.A. Lactation Lady, Julie Matheney, international board-certified lactation consultant (IBCLC). “Some women are simply more prone to clogs because they have a higher fat content in their milk. The fat separates and clogs the duct more.”
What are clogged milk ducts?
“A milk-clogged duct is an obstruction in the ductal system of a lactating breast,” explains Rowan Smith, IBCLC, a doula based outside of Montreal. A clog can happen anywhere inside the breast—from deep inside, all the way to the nipple pore. When you get a clogged milk duct, it means that the milk has sat in the breast for too long.
And it’s not just milk—it’s milk fat that creates the obstruction. “A mother’s breast milk is like milk sitting in the fridge,” Matheney explains. “Cream rises to top. The fat floats so it can separate. The fat thickens and sits in the ducts and they clog.”
When it’s pushed through—which can really, really hurt!—it can look like a curd, a string, or a chunk.
Why is this happening to me?
In all cases, a clogged milk duct is caused by milk stasis, that is, milk sitting too long in your breast. Not enough milk is being removed, and when excess milk accumulates, it thickens and has a hard time coming out. Beyond that there are two main categories of problems:
Infant Causes of Clogged Milk Ducts
Your baby is not emptying your boob well enough. This can be due to prematurity (the baby is teeny tiny and can’t suck well) or immaturity (the baby hasn’t quite gotten the hang of the whole breastfeeding thing yet).
There is a latch problem. This is so, so, so common, and there are myriad reasons for it. Maybe there’s a tongue-tie restriction; maybe the baby has some nerve and muscle restriction from being cramped up for nine months. “Most moms are told they have a good latch,” says Rowan, “but if it doesn’t feel good, something is wrong.” Lactation consultants are Godsends when it comes to this stuff.
The baby is sleeping too long. Yes! There’s such a thing (early on)! This, too, lets your milk accumulate and can cause clogged milk ducts.
Maternal Causes of Clogged Milk Ducts
You may not be feeding enough. Maybe you’ve gone back to work and can only pump once or twice a day. Or perhaps you have meetings or errands that keep you away from the baby and off your breastfeeding routine. Basically, your poor boob isn’t getting enough opportunities to be drained.
Your sleeping position may be the problem. If you sleep on your stomach, your milk can’t flow properly and can cause a clogged milk duct. Try lying on your side instead.
Your bras are too tight. Give your boobs some room to breathe and for the milk to flow! If you can, visit a shop that specializes in nursing bras. It is well worth the expense. You’ll be living in these suckers for a few months (or years), and they should fit you properly.
You’re holding your breast too tight while you’re feeding. Your boob doesn’t need as much support as your baby’s head! Ease up on your grip and see if that helps ease the clogged milk ducts.
Your baby carrier might be the culprit. If it’s squishing your boobs, it’s preventing the flow of milk.
How I can prevent clogged milk ducts?
“The best way to prevent clogged milk ducts is to frequently empty the breast well,” says Matheney. If you’re committed to breastfeeding, this means your baby will pretty much glued to you: “In first few weeks, feed consistently around the clock,” Matheny advises. True, you probably won’t be able to get a single thing done, but it won’t last—before you know it, your baby will be eating food and walking and talking.
Establishing a good latch and proper supply is key to a successful breastfeeding experience, so for your own sanity, it’s wise to just give yourself over to it.
“Most women have enough milk at the beginning,” explains Rowan, “but your breasts need lots of stimulation. The books say eight to 12 times day, or every three to four hours—but it’s actually much more frequent.” When she teaches prenatal classes, Rowan asks soon-to-be parents to write down everything they ate or drank in the last 24 hours—including sucking on candy—to give them a sense of feeding frequency. Her students will say they ate between six and 35 times a day.
“Adults, like babies, get comfort from food. We’re grownups and expecting babies to conform to eight to 12 times a day! I hear so many moms say, ‘He can’t be hungry, he ate 30 minutes ago!’ Go ahead and feed. Not doing so can cause the milk to get clogged.”
If you have to go back to work during those prime breastfeeding months, pump as often as you can with a high-quality pump to prevent clogged milk ducts. Rowan also recommends a few minutes of breast massage and compression (essentially deep massage) before doing your regular pumping routine, followed by one or two minutes of hand expression.
“You can think of your breast like toothpaste tube—you don’t want to start squeezing or emptying it in the middle!” Matheney says. Start from the back of breast and move to the nipple, and then all the way around breast without missing any ducts. She also suggests familiarizing yourself with your boobs to figure out where the ducts are so you can do compression behind the lumps. “Squeeze the milk down to the nipple to encourage it to flow,” she explains.
A few other ways to keep your breasts free of clogged milk ducts:
Change up nursing positions.
Don’t wear bras as often—you’re taking them on and off so much, why not just let your breasts breathe? If you’re home alone with the baby, let ’em hang free.
Okay, so despite all your best efforts, you’ve got a clogged milk duct. We know it’s painful—so painful! But ignoring the problem only makes it worse and can lead to a real infection (see below), so it’s best to go at it aggressively now.
Here are a few things to try:
“Heat melts the fat, like butter in a pan,” says Matheney, so a hot shower or hot compress is always a good place to start. Massage the crap out of it while you’re in there.
Clogged milk ducts respond well to vibration, so pull out that vibrator or electric toothbrush to break up the fat.
If the clog is in the nipple—ouch, indeed!—this is called a milk blister or a bleb. It’s usually on the tip of the nipple and looks like a whitehead. Put olive oil or coconut oil on a cotton swab and make slow circular motions to break down the fat.
If you’re a chronic overproducer, some women find success supplementing with sunflower lecithin, which is a fat emulsifier that can thin the milk. Discuss with your doctor before starting any supplements.
Nurse a lot on the side that’s clogged—in fact, start on that side. Whatever you do, don’t ignore it, because it could turn into mastitis.
This is rather, uh, controversial but some women—like Kristen Bell—have their husbands suck out a particularly clogged duct. Seriously. That said, if your husband can get it out but your baby can’t, there might be a bigger problem (you think?): It could indicate an issue with your little one’s latch since the baby should be able to.
If You Have an Oversupply…
Moms’ boobs are magical because they generally produce exactly what your particular baby needs. But sometimes—like in Kelly’s situation—you have way more milk than you know what to do with.
Remember: The more you pump, the more you make, so even though it might be tempting to pump to “empty out”—or check on how much you’re producing—you’re only signaling to your body that it needs to produce more milk, which exacerbates the cycle.
If it’s coming out like water out of a fire hose, express a tiny bit before to soften the breast and slow the velocity of the milk, Rowan suggests.
Matheney recommends eliminating pumping completely to stop the signals to your body to keep producing so much. But Rowan says in extreme cases—particularly for women with chronic problems or ducts that are verging on mastitis—you can try pumping both breasts first thing in the morning (and not again) so they can really soften. Matheney also suggests drinking tea with peppermint leaves (which dries up supply), and placing cabbage leaves in your bra to decrease supply and regulate your output.
So can clogged milk ducts be a problem for moms with a low supply?
Totally. “It can happen to anyone who waits too long,” says Matheney. And in fact, volume doesn’t matter as much as how often you’re removing it. “Think of your breasts as different-sized Tupperware—they have different storage capacity.” If you have less storage, you may need to nurse more often. No matter how much milk you’re producing, you still run the risk of a clogged milk duct.
What’s the difference between clogged milk ducts and mastitis?
Mastitis is a full-fledged infection, and it feels like one. It’s usually caused by a milk duct that’s been clogged way too long. You can also get mastitis when bacteria from your baby’s mouth enters in through the pores of your nipple and infects the breast.
If you have the following symptoms, it’s really important to call your doctor because mastitis can get worse quite quickly:
Serious tenderness or warmth to the touch
Flu-like symptoms—you feel worn down, achy, and lethargic
Fever of 101° or higher for more than 24 hours
Breast swelling
Red wedge-like shape on breast
Continuous pain, even while breastfeeding
A dose of antibiotics will usually make you feel better within two days. If you don’t feel better during that time, get back in touch with your doctor to rule out a more serious infection.
Is there anything worse than mastitis?
Yes. If you ignore the clogged milk duct and it turns into an infection that you also ignore—or if you refuse to go on antibiotics—mastitis can turn into an abscess. Basically, the breast gets a pus-filled cyst, and the only intervention is to have it drained by a trained breast surgeon in order to get the bacteria and fluid out. It takes six to eight weeks to recover after the corrective operation, and sometimes the surgeon has to leave a drain in until all the fluid and pus comes out.
You might be able to breastfeed during this time, but often the other breast needs to do the bulk of the work, which is not much fun.
This sucks. I want to stop breastfeeding.
“When women say they want to stop feeding because of a clogged milk duct, I listen and empathize,” Rowan says. “If they stop that moment, though, it will likely develop into mastitis or an abscess. So I recommend we get through this hump and then we can discuss stopping. But first we have to deal with the problem.”
The moral of the story here is: If you think something is wrong, get it checked out ASAP. Women tolerate pain differently, so it’s sometimes hard to gauge the severity of the problem, but trust your gut on this one.
And be aggressive early on—a clogged milk duct is painful, but much less painful than it will be if it turns into something more serious.
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My first yoga class was one of the most boring experiences of my life.
It took place in the basement of a church in small-town Ohio. My teacher was a young man who, as far as I could tell, was completely committed to austerity. Over the course of 90 minutes, we practiced maybe…five poses? I didn’t come near to breaking a sweat (in fact, I had to add layers). He did a lot of demonstrations and drew stick figures on a chalkboard to help us understand energy flow and muscular activation. It was very, very serious. Later I learned this was hatha yoga. Hatha is the root of most types of yoga popular in the West, but we practiced it extremely slowly in this particular class.
From this experience, my understanding was that all styles of yoga were dull and rather gloomy, but good for me—like flossing or doing a self-breast exam.
Then I tried vinyasa yoga, and oh my, my life was changed.
The practice—in which poses are strewn together in a gorgeous sequence—was like dancing on my mat, like swimming without water. (In fact, vinyasa means to arrange in a special way.) Sun salutations had me reaching up, down, forward, back, jumping, and folding, but the sequence wasn’t set, like it is in ashtanga yoga. The teacher would choreograph a sequence based on what we were working toward—an arm balance or a hip opener—with each pose building on the other.
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I was a professional dancer at the time, and this yoga style fit my physical instinct like a glove. During my first class, I noticed my shin—my shin!—was sweating. When class ended, I felt utterly high. A few years into this practice, I started teaching, and I loved figuring out how to lead students from one pose to the next.
Some time later, I got injured dancing, and vinyasa yoga no longer felt good. I needed to move much more slowly—to breathe through poses, to put more emphasis on alignment, to scale way back. I needed to be more careful with my body—something I didn’t feel like I could do at the pace at which I’d been practicing. I returned to the style of yoga I’d done with my original church-basement instructor, and it suited me much better.
What’s the best kind of yoga for me?
There are myriad forms of yoga, and while they (almost) all come from the same root, they are practiced quite differently. All the different types of yoga offered at studios and available online satisfy different needs, personalities, and physical limitations. Here are a few thoughts from various yoginis on why they love the style of yoga they’re currently practicing:
This is the type of yoga for you if you’re after a deep, detailed emphasis on alignment. Many props are employed during Iyengar classes, and it’s great if you have an injury or want to start very slowly, with a firm grounding in anatomy. Natalie Levin, RYT-200, has been teaching and practicing for almost 20 years and says:
Iyengar yoga has the most detailed attention to alignment included in the embodiment of every pose. There is no whipping through the poses to see how much you can sweat. It is a deep, powerful attention to the breath and the most subtle movements of the muscles and tendons that requires effort, both mental and physical. I don’t experience this in any other style of yoga.
Iyengar yoga challenges me to slow down enough to actually use the props correctly and when I did, I remember feeling a freedom that I could not experience with my own body unaided. The specificity of the instruction from the rigorously trained Iyengar teachers is awe-inspiring.
Otherwise known as hot yoga, practitioners of this style of yoga move through the same 26 postures in a room that’s heated to over 105 degrees. Bikram is good for people who can withstand heat and like a repetitive workout.
Cynthia Kay, yoga practitioner, says:
I didn’t know anything about Bikram yoga when I started—it was near my house and it seemed like a good way to shed some postpartum weight. I noticed improvement right away in my flexibility, strength, posture, and mood. That motivated me to go back more often. I soon had the series memorized, and I could get into a moving meditation in class. Everyone around me doing exactly the same thing created a great energy. Of course not every class is this great meditative experience—some classes I can’t clear my head and I struggle with the heat and the length of the postures—but when I miss a few a classes and then finally get back to it, it feels like I can move again!
Jessica Lattif, yoga practitioner, shares:
Bikram Yoga seems like the right kind of exercise for me, in that it plays to my (few!) physicals strengths: flexibility and balance. For some reason, I’m a person whose body responds well to sweating a lot, and Bikram gives me that without me having to do exercise that I’m terrible at and hate—like running.
It forces me to be present in the moment by combining yoga postures with intense physical circumstances (heat), which doesn’t leave room for my mind to wander. Overall, I felt joy and relief when I discovered Bikram as an intense form of exercise that I could do well and enjoy. I’ve never been particularly athletic, but being able to keep my breathing steady, hold my balance, and stay present in the classes makes me feel like I have a superpower.
This is an alignment-based style of yoga that uses a conceptual framework of loops and spirals that are already naturally occurring in the body to work toward healthful alignment of the spine and extremities during asana. Unlike some more body-centric types of yoga, Anusara is a heart-based practice, meaning each class focuses on a theme and is geared toward cultivating a particular quality that will enable the practitioner to feel greater peace of mind both during and after the practice.
Lauren Jacobs, RYT-200, says:
I think people with injuries, arthritis, and osteoporosis can benefit from Anusara because it intrinsically utilizes therapeutic principles to align joints, vertebrae, and bone structures. It can also help people with hectic, stressful lives who want a calming practice because it focuses on cultivating beneficial heart qualities. So while it is not ideal for cardio or big-muscle building, it is ideal for muscle lengthening, long-muscle building, alignment, and balance as well as centering and relaxation.
When I walk out of class (whether learning or teaching), I feel physically and emotionally open. My body feels stretched, strengthened, and aligned and my mind feels centered, calm, clear-headed, and one with all that surrounds me. There is a sense that both my body and inner heart are safe, and that the practice helps my body and inner heart be more aligned in the world.
The restorative style of yoga is wonderful if you really need to de-stress and rest your body. You will hold supported poses (usually lying down, but sometimes sitting or kneeling, like in child’s pose) for long periods of time in a darkened room. Props are employed so the body can fully relax. A restorative yoga class is a huge treat on a Sunday. Sonya Kurapatwa, E-RYT-500, a teacher who has been instructing dance for 28 years and yoga for 10, shares:
Coming from a dance background, I was hesitant at first to dive into yoga. What could a bunch of still poses offer to someone whose interest was in movement and expression? When I was exposed to a flow-based, vinyasa-style practice, I discovered there was a style of yoga-asana that allowed me to move and breathe and express myself in a way that was entirely different from dance, and by far more kind to my body.
But, all things in balance, I also required practices that pulled me out of my urgency to move and taught me the skill of stillness. That interest led me to practice Yin and restorative yoga—two very different styles with very different intentions which are often confused with one another because of the priority they put on stillness. It was stillness that had been missing in my life as a dancer.
Now I understand I require movement and stillness both. I need effort and ease both. Sthira [steadiness] and sukha [ease]! One approach without the harmonizing force of the other only feeds imbalance, so I practice and teach classes in hatha vinyasa and restorative and Yin, and I encourage students to practice a variety of styles in order to create their own interpretation of harmony.
One last thought from Steffany Moonaz, PhD, RYT-500, a yoga teacher who specializes in yoga for arthritis: You don’t actually have to choose. Really! Moonaz says:
Yoga practice is not a one-size-fits-all. And any individual person benefits from a different approach to practice depending on stage of life, energy level, time of day, health, and well-being. There are a variety of yoga practices and variations for each practice that can be used in various combinations for the greatest benefit. To suggest that one approach is always best is to overlook the wealth of yoga’s long and beautiful history.
My mother cooked every single night of my childhood—and by “cooked,” I don’t mean she warmed up canned tomato sauce and boiled some water for pasta. I’m talking Julia Child dinners. She had learned to cook in Paris, so our meals were gorgeous, healthy presentations, complete with a salad when the first course was cleared. Did she teach me to cook? No. In fact, in the 11 years I lived in the same tiny Brooklyn apartment, I turned on my oven…once. My staples were burritos and vegetarian chili. The end. So it was a revelation when I got married and pregnant to discover that I actually enjoyed cooking. (I know, so 1950s!) I owned maybe one cookbook, so this, of course, sent me down the rabbit hole of food blogs, of which there are about 8 gazillion. Some are pure joy. Some feel incredibly pretentious and share recipes with 34 hard-to-find ingredients. No thank you. Here are my eight go-tos:
Molly Wizenberg started this delicious, chatty blog back in 2004, as a single woman in her twenties. In 14 years it has grown into so much more than a food blog. She’s written about meeting her husband-to-be, opening a restaurant and bar, her pregnancy, postpartum depression, raising her daughter, and recently, her divorce and coming out. Although she shares tons of info about her life, it is mostly a wonderful place to go for easy, healthy soups and kid-friendly meals. And Granola No. 5 is, hands down, the best breakfast on the planet.
So Deb Perelman is not known as the healthiest food blogger. This chocolate banana bread is the best thing in the world! But she has a few recipes that are incredibly healthy and also incredibly good. Like this farro and tomato dish. It’s full of protein and flavor—and unbelievably easy to make. I guarantee you will be going back for more.
Who has time to cook a healthy dinner every night for a family of four? Apparently Jenny Rosenstrach does, and she’s taking us along for the ride. Sushi bowls, burrito bowls, lettuce hand rolls—she has it all to keep you healthy and your kids happy and fed, often in less than 30 minutes.
This beloved blog has a bit of everything, but I adore the recipes—easy, delicious, filling, and you never feel like an idiot making them! They are almost all foolproof. Yes, you’ll find loads of delicious sweets, but there are always a lot of healthy options, like this caprese salad, and tons of advice, like this post about how not to mess up a salad.
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Grain bowls? Vegetarian? Vegan? Paleo? Julia Mueller has it all. Her meals are full of delicious, healthy ingredients (think: curried lentil, chickpea, and kale salad with citrus dressing). This is the kind of healthy eating that won’t make you miss that lump of sugar in your scone.
Soups, grains, pantry stocking—Naturally Ella has got you covered. I mean, she has 15 recipes for butternut squash! If your vegetarian diet is feeling a little bland or you’re looking to streamline your diet, this is a great blog to turn to. (I made lots of her meals when I had gestational diabetes.)
Ashley Linkletter pairs recipes with music—how brilliant? Her blog focuses on viewing cooking as a mindfulness exercise, and she helps promote a sense of calm while preparing food. Definitely something most of us can use a little more of in our lives.
Is there anything cuter than a kid practicing yoga? When my nephew was 3, he took yoga at preschool and my sister sent me the video of him doing a sun salutation. He narrated the entire sequence (“and namaste”), but my favorite moment was when he jumped from downward dog to standing forward bend and said, “and give it a hop!” I died. Yoga is, of course, not just for adults. While kids may not need it the way we do—they are already super flexible and hopefully not at all stressed—it can still be beneficial, especially as they progress in school and life becomes more challenging. And even if it doesn’t turn them into little meditators, it can be a wonderful source of fun: Who doesn’t want to be a frog or a lion? Even more remarkable than my nephew’s little sun salutations is how yoga was used in the preschool classroom. The program was full of easy-to-do exercises for large groups in a classroom setting—reaching arms up and down, bending over and stretching legs—but mostly it was yogic breathing. The exercises were meant to calm the kids down and create a sense of quiet and ease in the classroom. One day I observed them and it really worked. The whole classroom went silent. It was a revelation. This is perhaps the biggest boon to a yoga practice, even for kids: the ability to calm down without the aid of a device or a parent or engaging in a full-on meltdown. But it’s not the only one. Here are some other benefits of practicing yoga with your kids or enrolling them in a class.
Concentration
There’s something to focusing on a single task—breathe in, breathe out; balance on one leg—that helps kids develop the ability to concentrate on one activity at a time. That’s a boon in this moment of device overload.
Balance
Practicing standing on one leg, or your hands or head, can not only help with body and spatial awareness, but it’s practice for balancing in less…literal ways.
Positive Body Image/Confidence
This is especially good for preteens and teens. Yoga allows you to be with/in your body on your mat without judgement or pressure. You see all the incredible things your amazing body can do! Backbend, twist, forward bend, balance! It can help a lot with the self-love.
Group Activity That’s Not Competitive
No one is being left out! No one is winning or losing. No one is being picked last. Win–win!
Body Awareness
Yoga works on gross motor skills and also on much finer motor skills: When you’re balancing on one foot, even a microscopic shift can make you fall over! The practice is a wonderful way to become aware of all the ways tiny shifts in how we hold ourselves and behave generally make a difference in our days.
Strength and Flexibility
Some kids need more musculature, some more flexibility—yoga develops both, and not just on a physical level. A kid who needs more strength can carry those teachings into her life (“I can be stronger and tougher!”). A kid who is tight can learn to loosen up not just in his hamstrings, but off the mat as well (“maybe I can go with the flow a little more…”) Want to bring yoga to your kids at home? Cosmic Kids and Gaia are wonderful places to start. Watch or download whatever classes your kid likes. (This is a great place to begin, but always best to find a live teacher!) Namaste.
Can we share a little secret? Many, many women in their twenties, thirties, and forties are dealing with hair loss or majorly thinning hair. Put out a call on social media for friends who struggle with this and a number of women will raise their virtual hands. There are a variety of factors that may contribute to hair loss—stress, hormones, genetics—but there is a lot you can do without running to the dermatologist (although in some cases it’s wise to do that too). There are plenty of rockin’ hairstyles for thin hair. But first…
What’s the difference between thin hair and fine hair? And what is thinning hair?
Remember when you were a kid and people were always commenting on the thickness (or lack thereof) of your hair? “Your hair is so thick!” your mom might have said as she tried to get the tangles out. Or: “What fine hair you have!” the hairdresser might have moaned as she tried to volumize your tresses. Now we’re adding in “thin.” Thin and fine are not the same thing. “The difference between thinning hair or hair loss and fine hair is that the former can be a condition caused by health, medication, or circumstances, whereas the latter is what you’re born with,” explains Sara Carden, a hair educator, editorial stylist, and hairstylist at Shanghai Salon in Costa Mesa, California. “It is absolutely possible to have thick, fine hair.” A lot of people confuse these terms or misunderstand the potential combinations. It’s possible to have thin fine hair or thick fine hair. Similarly, you can have thin coarse hair or thick coarse hair. Want a more scientific explanation? “Thin” hair describes the density of the follicles themselves, that is, how packed in they are across your scalp. “Thin hair means you have [fewer] hair follicles placed closely together,” as explained on the lifestyle/natural hair website Trials n’ Tresses. “That is why quite often you see a lot of scalp during your styling process.” In other words: When you have thin hair, you have less actual hair. Fine hair, on the other hand, refers to the width or thickness of the strand. It means that the strand itself is…not very thick. (The opposite of fine is coarse hair.) Even if it doesn’t have a lot of volume or looks sort of wispy, you might have a lot of it.
Why the thinning hair?
There are several possible causes of hair loss, but according to Jennifer Soung, MD, a board certified dermatologist in Santa Clara, California, who researches hair loss, the most common cause of thin hair is stress. “If a woman has any stressful event in their life—the flu or an emotional stress like a divorce—she can develop telogen effluvium, a temporary condition where anything non-essential on your body, like hair, doesn’t go into the hair cycle growth,” she tells HealthyWay. You can tell that this is what’s going on if you lose a ton of hair three to six months after the precipitous event. In this kind of scenario, you see thinning throughout the scalp. You have two choices here: Wait it out until the hair goes back into its cycle or try a product like Rogaine. The hardest thing about hair loss, Soung explains, is that it involves a lot of waiting. Because hair growth happens in three- to six-month cycles, there’s not much you can do to speed up the process. Another cause of thin hair is female pattern hair loss, Soung says, which is a hormonal issue that involves your hair thinning at the scalp and will make it seem like you have less hair all over. The treatment for this is often birth control or Aldactone (spironolactone), which act as hormone blockers. Soung adds that a new dietary supplement, Viviscal, has shown promise. The third cause, which is less common, is that there is something else going on with your hair. If you’re noticing excessive flaking, pain, and burning in addition to thin hair, it’s time to see a dermatologist. Other possible causes? It could be genetics, environmental changes, more hormones (all those voluminous pregnancy locks lost after the baby arrives!), or a sign of a thyroid disorder. That said, Soung tells HealthyWay that there is not much research into why women lose their hair, so more needs to be done to uncover the causes. If you’re noticing a wider part, thinning on the side of your head, or patches falling out, you are probably dealing with thin hair and you might want to consult a dermatologist.
No matter the cause, though, there are a number of ways you can make the most of thin hair.
Let’s talk thin hair hairstyles.
“There are many hairstyles that look great for fine hair, but not a lot to hide thinning hair,” Carden explains. “For a client with thinning hair, I recommend avoiding going for long lengths.”
“I won’t immediately suggest a pixie cut,” says Carden, “but styles that will give volume and a modern look would be something like a layered bob.” We love a longer bob hairstyle for thin hair, but if you’re looking to really chop it all off, here’s a shorter option.
Hairstyles for Thin Hair: Wavy
Go for a wavy, graduated bob. This will bring more volume to the thin hair sitch and hide some of the thinner patches. Even if you’ve spent your whole life trying to tame your tresses, use the wave to your advantage to create more volume on your head.
Hairstyles for Thin Hair: Curly
“If you are thinning in the parietal areas of your head, go for taper looks, with a longer fringe to hide the recession,” Carden suggests. “If you have curly thinning hair, this actually works in your favor, as curly hair creates its own natural volume and distracts from the sparse areas.”
Our Favorite Finds for Thin Hair
Soung recommends trying Rogaine in any form. Since hair thinning can occasionally have an allergic component—for example, from a hair dye that has caused a rash—Soung recommends a gentle shampoo that is hypoallergenic. Carden recommends tackling thin hair by starting with the foundation of the issue: the scalp. Here are her picks:
ReTress Hair Rejuvenation Kit is a highly rated collection of shampoo, conditioner, serum, and dietary supplements formulated to produce thicker-looking hair for women.
As hard as it is, the most important thing when dealing with thin hair or hair loss—after consulting with a stylist and dermatologist!—is to be patient. Because hair grows in such long cycles, you may not see any difference from day to day or even from week to week, but it is completely possible for change to occur. If you suspect that your thin hair may indeed be stress related, it might be a good opportunity to take inventory of the challenging parts of your life and see if you can make some changes to benefit your overall health and wellness.
We can all admit that some bodily pains are more worrisome than others. A stabbing sensation in your foot? Meh. It’ll probably go away. But breast pain? Most of us will be sent into a panic, especially if it doesn’t go away quickly. We are here to tell you that you do not need to have an anxiety attack. There are, as you’ll see, a gazillion reasons for breast pain, and most are totally benign. The most important thing you can do for your breasts is to keep an eye on them by performing regular breast exams and scheduling your yearly trips to the gynecologist for a comprehensive checkup. A good rule of thumb is to start scheduling annual mammograms as soon as your doctor says it’s time (usually around 40). You should always schedule an appointment if you think something feels (or looks) off. You know your body better than anyone, so take charge of your own health and get it checked out—it could save your life.
How common is breast pain?
Pretty common, and it can vary wildly in intensity. Some women feel mild discomfort—swelling, a little lumpiness, or tenderness—before or during their periods, and some feel it quite acutely. Anywhere between 50 and 70 percent of women experience breast pain, usually related to the changing hormone levels associated with their menstrual cycles. If you’re concerned about pain in your breasts, begin by tracking when and where the pain occurs. If it seems to come and go with your menstrual cycle, this is generally normal.
Why do I have breast pain?
“There are 900 reasons you can have breast pain,” explains Kerry Price, MD, an OB-GYN in Laguna Hills, California. “There are so many layers of tissue in and around the breasts—skin, glands, muscle, cartilage, rib. Right behind your breasts are internal organs and tons of nerves and lymph nodes.” In other words: There’s a lot going on around there, and it is not necessarily your boob that’s hurting you. The most important thing to remember, though, is that the vast majority of breast pain is totally benign. Some common reasons for breast pain?
Pregnancy, Especially During the First Trimester when Breasts Are Growing and Changing at a Rapid Rate
First trimester breasts are no joke—the pain is only rivaled by the pain of growing breasts during puberty.
Breastfeeding
This deserves its own category because breastfeeding pain—especially in the first few weeks—is real, often horrendous, and usually a sign that something is wrong, whether it be the baby’s latch or a sign of infection. (In other words: breastfeeding, when done properly, should not hurt.) Most breast pain from breastfeeding, however, is concentrated on the nipple, or associated with engorgement or blocked ducts. Which leads us to…
Mastitis
This is an infection that can develop during breastfeeding. It most commonly occurs in the first six to 12 weeks, but can occur later and in rare cases can happen unrelated to breastfeeding. The breast becomes red, swollen, hot, and painful. Many women report feeling like they have the flu.
Medications
Birth control pills, fertility drugs, and some SSRIs and antidepressants list breast pain among their side effects.
Too Much Caffeine
According to Michelle Brunnabend, DO, MPH, at the Mercy Clinic in Oklahoma City, some women can experience breast pain with caffeine consumption, so if you’re drinking loads of coffee, cut back and see how your boobs feel after a week or two.
Cysts
Small pockets of fluid that can be seen on an ultrasound may cause discomfort.
Breast Surgery
Occasionally, scars on your breasts can cause pain even after you’ve healed from breast surgery.
Why do I only have breast pain on one side?
“Breasts are kind of like hands and feet,” Price explains. “They are always a tiny bit different.” Unlike many parts of the body, though, breasts are composed of muscle and granular tissue and respond to how you move. So let’s say you’re a softball pitcher: You might have more pain on your dominant side. Or conversely, you might have pain on the side that’s less active. Start paying attention to your daily activities and whether you can trace any relationship between your breast pain and how you’re moving your body.
What’s the difference between concerning and non-concerning breast pain? (And when do I see a doctor?)
This is sometimes also referred to as “clinical” and “non-clinical” breast pain, but Price prefers the terms “concerning” and “non-concerning.” Non-concerning breast pain comes and goes on its own, is infrequent, and is associated with a particular activity. For example, if your breast pain crops up every time you play softball, or comes and goes with your menstrual cycles, Price would categorize it as non-concerning.
Concerning breast pain is persistent. It doesn’t get better with anything you try, and it is not associated with your menstrual cycle. It might be getting worse with time, and it is always present. “Breast pain in the absence of a mass or skin changes is rarely of concern,” says Brunnabend. “Know your own breasts and feel them consistently at the same time during your cycles so that you will know if a change occurs.” Symptoms that are concerning? Along with pain, you are experiencing bloody or clear discharge from your nipple; a new lump that doesn’t go away after your period; local redness, pus or a fever; dimpling, or nipple inversion. Remember: Breast cancer is usually not painful, so even if you’re experiencing concerning symptoms accompanied by breast pain, you aren’t necessarily experiencing the symptoms of breast cancer. If you have concerning breast pain, though, it is definitely worth seeing your doctor.
Are there certain age ranges in which breast pain is more common?
Brunnabend say this is variable, but it most often occurs in women in their childbearing years.
Where does breast pain typically occur?
It most commonly occurs in the outer quadrants of the breast and armpit region.
What are fibrocystic breasts?
Fibrocystic breasts are very common. According to Price, up to 40 percent of women have them. These breasts have more glands, so the tissue is more granular and more hormonally sensitive. The little lumps women might feel in their breasts are fluid-filled cysts rather than a mass of cells.During pregnancy and the postpartum period, these cysts can feel more tender. The good news? The fibrocystic nature of the breast does not mean women with fibrocystic breasts are more susceptible to breast cancer, it just means that breast exams can be harder to do, so these women really need to get to know their breasts, getting to know what feels normal and what’s new or unusual. Which brings us to…
How do I conduct a breast self-exam?
Breast exams are vital, whether you have breast pain or not. They are your primary way of monitoring what’s happening with your boobs and whether any unexpected changes are occurring. And more importantly, it’s a way for you to get to know the unique feel and consistency of your breasts. This is how you will really know if something new seems to have appeared that wasn’t there before. “There is no one correct way to do an exam,” explains Brunnabend, “but you should be consistent each time. You should be looking for lumps, bumps, skin texture, or color changes.” Pick a system and stick with it: in the shower, lying down with a pillow under your shoulder, or in front of a mirror. If you’re examining the left breast, the left arm should be overhead. Use the pads of your right fingers to palpate around the whole breast, from the outside to the center in a circular motion. You’re looking for anything hard or unfamiliar, and you can use a fair amount of pressure to really get in there. When you’re done, squeeze the nipple to check for discharge. If you’re breastfeeding, you will eject milk, so don’t worry about that. If you feel anything unusual, schedule an appointment with you doctor. But don’t freak out: According to the National Breast Cancer Foundation, eight out of 10 lumps are not cancerous.
How often should I perform a breast self-exam?
“You should definitely do a breast exam at least once a month,” Price says. The best time? Right after your period, because right before your period your breasts can be very tender. “Stick to the same time of your cycle, not the same day on the calendar, so you can establish a true baseline.” In other words: Do it the second or third day after your period ends, not on the second or third day of the month.
How can I relieve the pain?
The most important thing to do with breast pain that will not go away is to see your doctor ASAP. Here are some smaller changes that can possibly make a difference for non-concerning breast pain (or between now and your doctor’s appointment):
Reduce your salt intake and increase water consumption.
Wear a supportive bra, even to bed (your most comfortable option is likely a sports bra!).
We know that breast pain can be frightening, but it is usually nothing to be too concerned about. And remember: If something seems suspicious, call your doctor and ask them what’s going on. They’re your breasts. Take good care of them.
Take a deep breath. How many times has someone said this to you when you were feeling stressed? When you’re stuck in a traffic jam, prepping for a high-stakes presentation, or in the midst of a passionate argument with your SO, there is a lot to be said for simply…taking a breath. Why is breathing so effective at calming us down or at least helping us come back to our bodies? And why are breathing exercises at the root of almost any meditation or relaxation practice? “The widely advertised reason why we pay attention to breath during meditation is because it’s constantly changing,” explains Mark Miller, PsyD, master of public health, clinical psychologist, and mindfulness teacher at the University of Southern California. “We have a consistent target, so we can pay attention to something that’s changing and learn to tolerate that.” The less commonly advertised reason, however, is much more profound. “When we pay attention during meditation, we notice that we don’t have control over the breath—and in fact over anything!” explains Miller, “…what we think, what emotions we are feeling, what stories we are playing out in our minds…” So we sit, breathe, and tolerate letting the breath do what it does. This, in turn, is excellent practice for tolerating all the other things in our lives that are out of our control.
Breathing exercises help us return to the now.
“The breath is happening in the here and now,” explains Jennifer Brilliant, a certified yoga teacher, therapist, and medical exercise specialist who has been teaching yoga for more than 30 years. “We have bummer feelings about the past and anxious feelings about the future, but of course none of those are happening right now.” It’s hard to tell our minds to stop thinking, but if you engage the breath, you can get some relief. “Even taking a couple of breaths can ground you in the present moment,” says Brilliant. When we get stressed, most of us have a fight or flight response, which shortens our breath and prepares us for battle. This is useful in the moment, but it starts to wear on us if we stay in this state over time. According to a resource hosted by Harvard Health Publishing, stress leads to everything from lowered immune responses to anxiety and depression to high blood pressure, which is a risk factor strongly associated with heart disease. Instead of taking a pill, we can tap into our built-in calming device: the breath.
The Nervous System in a Nutshell
The sympathetic nervous system is for emergencies, Miller explains. The parasympathetic nervous system helps us to relax and move toward equilibrium. “When we have an adrenaline rush from a worried thought, our breathing increases and our body is mobilizing to take action related to the fantasy,” says Miller. “We are at the whim of our breath. The sympathetic nervous system gets engaged all the time—from tiny squirts of adrenaline all the way to a panic attack.” These worried thoughts can come from anywhere. Will I get home on time? Will I get the job? Is my partner mad at me? When these thoughts occur, the parasympathetic nervous system can help us cope. How do we the engage the parasympathetic nervous system? Miller suggests we should become “fascinated with the symptoms of our anxiety in our distress.” In other words, using a meditation or mindfulness practice, we can take an interest in the breath that will help us experience the sensations in our bodies without running away. “During a panic attack, you can move toward the sensations in the body, not toward the scenario or thoughts,” he says. “If you can become familiar with sensation”—shortness of breath, heart racing—“the more it happens, the less afraid you’ll be. It becomes an old friend who [you] don’t want to visit often, but you can say, ‘I know this. There it is!’ Instead of resisting you can allow it to play out.” Sitting with the breath, as it is, is a way to practice sitting through all sorts of discomfort in our lives.
A Note on Breathing Exercises
More prescriptive breath practices like pranayamashould always be attempted with a teacher first. What we are sharing here are simple exercises you can do almost any place or any time to give yourself a little relief.
Simply pay attention.
How often do you pay attention to your breath—actually pay attention? Obviously, you’re already breathing, but can you put your awareness on your breath without changing anything? “With total newbies, I usually work on breath awareness,” Brilliant says. “Where do you feel your breath in your body? Do you feel it coming into your nostrils? If you breathe in, it feels cool. When you breathe out, it feels warmer.” Another way of tapping into the breath and your body is to notice what’s happening in the space around you—and within you. Listen to sounds in and out of the room you’re in, Brilliant suggests. Can you hear airplanes, cars, birds, dogs barking? Is your stomach growling? Are your ears ringing? Can you feel your heartbeat? The breath can help you tune in to the present moment both inside and outside of your own physical being. This can also be extremely useful if you’re feeling anxious. “In the midst of a panic attack, we tend to judge the panic,” explains Carly Goldstein, PhD, assistant professor at Alpert Medical School of Brown University and research scientist at the Miriam Hospital. “If you can focus on your breath, accept that it’s faster and not what you want, you can eventually calm down. I think of breathing as a way to hijack the nervous system.” Miller notes that trying to change the breath or creating a scenario around the panic (“My heart is beating so fast that I must be having a heart attack!”) only increases the panic. “When we control panicked breathing by trying to slow it down, it causes more intense panicked breathing,” he explains. “If you are successful in slowing it down, you end up having chest pain. When we fight that uncomfortable breathing, our throat constricts, our shoulders go up, [and] we cause more panic.” The answer is to leave the breath open and allow yourself time and space to experience it as it is. This is an exercise in familiarizing yourself with your breath.
Try it
Lie down on flat on your back. Put your hands on your chest and breathe a few times without changing anything. Can you feel your chest move as you breathe? Move your hands down to your ribs. Do your ribs move? Your side ribs? Your belly? Don’t force it or ask it to change. You’re just observing the breath here.
Tip
When you’re lying on the floor, your body should have sufficient space to breathe. In other words, there should be air between your upper arm and torso (in your armpit), and your legs shouldn’t be touching each other.
Scan your body with breathing.
During her internship and residency, Goldstein worked in a hospital setting, often with patients who were critically ill. As anyone who has been in the hospital knows, it can be incredibly stressful. Doctors have little time, and patients sometimes have difficulty advocating for themselves. “When the team was coming by for rounds, I’d do breathing with the patient beforehand to clear her mind and get her thoughts in order,” Goldstein says. “Then when the medical team arrived, the patient could present her interests and advocate for herself.” The breathing exercise Goldstein would most commonly use in this setting was a body scan with breathing. This exercise can be seen as the follow-up to just paying attention. Here you’re asked to draw your mind to one body part at a time while you breathe. Part of its benefit is the way it can focus the mind. Instead of allowing yourself to spin out of control, your task is to place your attention on a specific part of your body—such as your toes, your heels, or your ankles—and to feel the breath move through. (Obviously, you don’t have breath in your toes! But the idea is that you can relax each inch of your body to calm down.)
Try it
Depending on how much time you have, this can be done with bigger body parts (e.g., legs, belly, chest) or on an almost infinitesimal level (first knuckle of the thumb, second knuckle, and so on). Begin by breathing normally. Scan from the top down, sending healing, warm energy to each part of the body. Take stock of what that part of the body feels like. (Is your head tight? Tingling? Pounding? Is there no sensation at all?) Then inhale and exhale through five breath cycles for each body part. “You can use imagery,” explains Goldstein, “a light, a feeling of fuzziness, running through or on top of [your] body, regulating the breath to be even and slow. Picture warmth, comfort, relaxation.”
TIP
With each exhale, relax a little more. If you ever feel your breath getting forced, just go back to breathing totally normally.
To calm down (or even lose weight) elongate your exhale.
Breathing exercises can serve as a pause button, slowing down the chaos of our everyday lives. In her clinical practice, Goldstein works with weight-loss patients and finds that breathing techniques can help when someone is overwhelmed by a craving. These exercises short-circuit the “need-to-have-it, limited-resource” mentality, she explains. When we can breathe deeply again (instead of, say, grabbing the bag of chips), we can reconnect to our values and what’s most important to us (in Goldstein’s patients’ cases, to lose weight). And then it will be easier to make good decisions. Of course, this doesn’t just apply to weight loss! Deep breathing slows the chaos for all of us in moments of panic, and extending the exhale in particular is calming because “the heart rate is naturally slower on the exhalation,” Brilliant explains.
Try It
This is good to practice if you wake up in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep or if you’re stuck in traffic and need to calm down. Begin by breathing in for three seconds and out for three seconds. Then you can start extending the exhalation slowly: three in, four out, without strain. Eventually you can work up to breathing in for five seconds and out for 10.
Tip
This should not be forced. If you feel yourself getting anxious or agitated, go back to regular breathing.
Try a three-part breath.
The three parts of this breathing exercise are low belly, ribs, and chest. Starting in the low belly, the breath fills the body one section at a time. In other words, you’re taking in more air than in some of the preceding exercises. This is an excellent technique to help you find some calm.
Try It
Sit in a chair or lie on the floor and place your hands on your low belly. Fill the low belly with air. Without exhaling, move your palms to your middle ribs and fill that area with air. Bring your hands to your upper chest and take a last sip of air. Exhale all the air out. If you’re doing this in bed, imagine you’re falling into the mattress.
Tip
If it’s too much to do the full three parts right away, you can inhale into the low belly and exhale, middle belly and exhale, etcetera, until you build up the stamina to draw in more air.
Get app support.
A teacher is always the best guide to breathing exercises, but there are plenty of apps that can help you along the way. Here are some to try:
Headspace offers both basic meditation techniques and more advanced specific guided meditations (for self-esteem, productivity, depression, and more).
Calm is specifically geared to help you…calm down.
Pacifica offers guided meditation and relaxation techniques. Pacifica can also connect you to a therapist who specializes in cognitive behavioral therapy.
