Category: Motherhood

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.
• Drink lots of water.
• Rest as often as possible.

Help! How can I fix my clogged milk ducts?

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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Lisa Eicher doesn’t shy away from challenges. She’s competed twice on American Ninja Warrior, she’s a mother of four, and her family pets include a pig and and a three-legged dog (yes, really). Two of her children are adopted from Bulgaria, and they have Down syndrome.

A post shared by Lisa Eicher (@eicherumba) on Feb 2, 2018 at 9:04am PST

When Hurricane Harvey damaged the Eichers’ home in 2017, forcing an emergency evacuation, she greeted firefighters with a frank warning.

“I just told them, ‘We’ve got two kids with Down syndrome, a three-legged dog, and a pig, all of whom are going to be pretty freaked out,'” Eicher tells HealthyWay. “And they were just like, ‘You know, that sounds great. Bring them on.’ They made it so much less scary for everybody. It was crazy—but not too bad.”  

A post shared by Lisa Eicher (@eicherumba) on Dec 6, 2017 at 8:35am PST

As we learned, Eicher has a simple (but crucial) message: Instead of ignoring differences, celebrate them. Instead of shying away from challenges, face them head-on. She’s using her American Ninja Warrior appearances to spread that message to as many people as possible. And given what she’s accomplished, it’s hard not to feel inspired when she starts talking about her journey.
We caught up with Eicher to find how she stays motivated while training, why she decided to adopt, and what most people don’t understand about Down syndrome.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
HealthyWay: Are you guys back in Houston?
Lisa Eicher: Yes. We moved back into our house maybe a month ago. We’re still not totally done with repairs and other stuff, but we’re slowly getting there.
I’ve got some friends from the area. They ended up getting lucky—not much damage—but I take it that wasn’t the case for your house.
It was a lot of damage, yeah, but we’re back in there. All is well. Slowly but surely!
I wanted to speak to you about your children with Down syndrome. In pieces you’ve written online, I appreciated how you said that Down syndrome isn’t a negative, and that people aren’t necessarily being helpful by pretending that it doesn’t exist.
Yeah. With Ninja Warrior, our whole thing is: Ninjas don’t count chromosomes. For us, that really just means that being a ninja is more than competing on the show. It’s all about including everyone, no matter what.

A post shared by Lisa Eicher (@eicherumba) on Mar 23, 2018 at 12:53pm PDT

And that’s kind of our message, in general. It’s about inclusion and kindness, no matter what our differences are. I guess that with my adopted kids, who both have Down syndrome—I don’t think I would recognize the need for this type of advocacy if not for them. I’ve seen them … getting nasty looks, or kids—even adults—being mean to them. Stuff like that. The idea is to accept them as who they are.

They are different. I don’t need to pretend that Archie is the same as all the other 13-year-old boys in his school, because he’s not. He’s different, and that’s okay.

Sevy—our most recently adopted—she’s been with us for less than two years, and she’s very different. She’s non-verbal, and she has a lot of institution behaviors from being in orphanages and institutions for so long.

A post shared by Lisa Eicher (@eicherumba) on Jan 10, 2018 at 10:17am PST

Instead of trying to hide her differences or make her act like other kids, we just celebrate the fact that she’s different. I mean, she is. I’ll straight-out say she’s one of the strangest kids in the entire world. She’s a very strange child, but I love that. It’s something that we celebrate, her uniqueness.

Our message is not to say that they’re more alike than different or that they’re just like everyone else, because that’s not true. It’s okay to acknowledge those differences.
My mother was a special education teacher, and in my house there was never that taboo of talking about what the differences are. But then you get around people that aren’t used to Down syndrome or autism and they try to ignore the differences. I think, for them, it comes from a good place.
Totally. But it can be just so uncomfortable, because—well, for us, you can stare all you want. If you’re interested in my kids, that’s fine! Come up and ask questions and ask us all about them. It’s worse when people either run away or turn their heads.

A post shared by Lisa Eicher (@eicherumba) on Nov 17, 2017 at 1:04pm PST

We’ve had lots of instances where we’re, say, at a playground, and Sevy will go over to the swings, and all the kids at the swingset leave. It’s very obvious. Or when the kids say, “Why is she talking like that?” or something, and the parents shush them.

I want to say, “No, it’s okay, I’d love to explain why she’s talking like that.” She is talking different, and we can acknowledge that. We’re not trying to hide it.
There’s no shame in those differences.
That’s kind of our whole thing. We had an incident recently where these teenaged girls were giving Sevy really nasty looks at a basketball game. They were older, about 15, so they should’ve known better.
We made this little video where Archie explains how to talk to him and his sister. He’s just like, “Say ‘Hi,’ ask ‘How are you doing?,’ Ask us our names.” That’s kind of our whole thing. It’s okay to engage with us.

A post shared by Lisa Eicher (@eicherumba) on Feb 5, 2018 at 11:01am PST

You have a different perspective on this, because you adopted these children knowing they have Down syndrome. Could you speak to that process?
Oh, yeah, for sure. I always knew from a really young age that I really wanted to adopt one day, ever since I was a kid. It was just in me. I knew that that would be part of my life.

My husband and I started dating when we were 15, and [when we were married] we’d already talked about stuff like that. We always said it would be a “one day” thing. We kinda pictured that we’d have a few kids biologically and sometime later we’d adopt.

A post shared by Lisa Eicher (@eicherumba) on Mar 16, 2017 at 10:17am PDT

I also had a passion for working with people with special needs. When I was in elementary school, I was in a program where we left campus once a week to visit this school with severely disabled students. You had the option of going and volunteering in those classrooms, so I started doing that. That’s when my love for that whole world grew.

My husband and I babysat a boy with Down syndrome in high school, and then we coached this Special Olympics team. All of these things kept growing that passion, and then after Ace—our firstborn—turned 2, we started talking about adding one.
Had you made the decision to adopt a child with special needs by that point?
Well, we didn’t really know what adoption going to be like. Once we decided to adopt, I did some research, and I came [across] this organization called Reece’s Rainbow that is basically a Down syndrome adoption ministry.
So when I found that, I was like, “Oh my goodness, our two biggest passions are colliding.” I just knew that’s where we’d find our next child.

A post shared by Lisa Eicher (@eicherumba) on Sep 6, 2017 at 1:39pm PDT

My husband was, of course, on board, so we tried to find out which countries we’d qualify for and all of that. Bulgaria was the best fit for us, it seemed. At this point, we’re thinking about adopting a baby with DS, younger than Ace, who’s just 2 at the time. That was our only requirement—baby. We didn’t care whether it was a boy or girl, or whether they had heart defects or whatever, they just needed to be younger than Ace.
[Editorial note: Eicher mentions heart defects here because cardiovascular abnormalities are common among individuals with Down syndrome. According to the National Down Syndrome Society, about half of all infants with Down syndrome have some type of heart defect.]
Then, for some reason, the director of Reece’s Rainbow randomly sent me an email that said, “How about this little boy? He’s been waiting for a really long time.” I read his bio, and I saw that he was 7, and I was like, “Oh, no, no, no, that’s too old.” And then I clicked and saw his picture.
It was just an immediate reaction. 100 percent. That’s our son. My heart ached for each one of those children, but this feeling was very different. It was like an instant knowing.
How did people in your life react to your decision?
I think the hardest part was telling our families. Or mostly my family—I grew up in a very conservative and kinda cookie-cutter place. I had a great community, a great family, great friends, and all of that, but—well, it’s just that everybody does the same thing. This was pretty big, and I think it was outside of what anybody could understand. They couldn’t understand why we would do this.

A post shared by Lisa Eicher (@eicherumba) on Nov 26, 2017 at 10:07am PST

That was a huge challenge. And getting Archie home, that was a breeze, it was a very simple adoption. He had some typical behavior [issues] when he first came home, but otherwise, he fit seamlessly into the family. He and Ace were best friends right off the bat.
I read on your blog that Sevy was much more difficult.
Sevy—she had a more traumatic background. Archie does have a very traumatic past, but for one thing, we got him out [of the orphanage] when he was 7, and Sevy was close to 13 by the time she came home. She has a lot more behaviors that are indicative of a traumatic past and of being in an institution for so long.

A post shared by Lisa Eicher (@eicherumba) on Jan 19, 2018 at 1:18pm PST

So, yeah, she has had more of a struggle with bonding, specifically to me, and she’s just a little bit more—she has to be on her own, in a sense. For 13 years, she kind of had to fight for everything, so we’re working really hard to reverse all of that damage. It’s been tough.
Yeah, I imagine so. I know that your daughter Ace was a big motivation for you on American Ninja Warrior. How did she compel you to get involved?
We’ve always watched American Ninja Warrior as a family, and—whoa, I guess it was a couple of seasons ago—I wasn’t in any kind of shape at all. I was probably more out of shape than I’d ever been in my life. I’d been an athlete previously, and Ace—I guess she knew that I had it in me. While we were watching, she just said, “Mom, you could do that.”

A post shared by Lisa Eicher (@eicherumba) on Oct 27, 2017 at 10:53am PDT

And I mean, I literally laughed, but she kept being persistent about it. I just thought, “Why is she even keeping on about this? Obviously, I can’t do any of that stuff. I can’t even hang from a bar, let alone do a pull-up or any of the things that are necessary for that show.”

Then, I was watching Archie a couple of days later on the swings. He loves to swing, but he couldn’t pump. It took him a really long time to figure out how to pump his own legs, and he’d been working on it for years, literally. He finally got it this one day.
And it just hit me. Well, they have to work so hard for things that [are] simple, everyday things for us—pumping your legs on a swing, riding a scooter, or just pedaling a bike. I was like, “Maybe I can work for something that seems impossible. Even if I don’t get it, at least I can show them that I tried.”

A post shared by Lisa Eicher (@eicherumba) on Feb 20, 2018 at 12:24pm PST

I started training about six months before the competition. I ended up being chosen for the show, and I competed in San Antonio last year, and then again in Dallas this year. It’s been a crazy, crazy experience, and right now, I’m still training. I’ll do it again next year.
Was there a challenge you weren’t expecting, either in the training or in the actual competition?
I think I underestimated the mental aspect of it. So much of it is mental strength. I was actually more prepared, mentally, for my first season than this most recent season. We were out of our house for six months, and I just wasn’t as focused.

A post shared by Lisa Eicher (@eicherumba) on Mar 25, 2017 at 3:50am PDT

I actually did better last season than I did this season. I got off on an obstacle that I completed last season. I really think I just cracked under the pressure—I mean, it’s quite scary, standing up there under bright lights with the cameras right in your face. It’s a whole production.
I was going to ask you how you stayed motivated, both physically and mentally. American Ninja Warrior certainly isn’t easy.
It’s not. Again, my kids are my motivators, and I mean all four of them.
American Ninja Warrior has made my family so much stronger in all ways. My kids Sevy and Archie—you know, people with Down syndrome have low muscle tone in general—and they were both pretty physically weak before we started all of this.
That’s especially true for Archie, but he did his first pull-up the other day. He can hang from a bar forever, and the same with Sevy.

A post shared by Lisa Eicher (@eicherumba) on Feb 16, 2018 at 11:12am PST

They can hang from ropes or climb rock walls. It’s just become part of our life now. I think I’m kind of the glue for that. I mean, there are days where my friends are out at happy hour hanging out, and I’m training and I’m like, “I don’t want to do this.” But I just have to remember why I’m doing it. I have to remember the message that we’re trying to spread as a family. The bigger the platform, the more people that hear the message, so yeah—there’s a lot of motivation to keep going.
The “glue” thing kind of goes both ways. They’re inspiring to you, and you’re hoping to be that for them.
Right. Exactly. Exactly.
Do you have any advice for anyone who’s thinking about trying out for American Ninja Warrior?
My advice, for anyone who even feels like they have an interest in it, would be just to go for it. There are lots of ninja gyms and similar types of gyms popping up all over the place. It’s so much fun. It’s just such a fun way to train, and you see the progress so clearly.

A post shared by Lisa Eicher (@eicherumba) on Mar 24, 2018 at 4:39pm PDT

I couldn’t even hang from a bar when I started, and within a few weeks, I was doing five pull-ups in a row. You see the progress, and it feels really good to achieve these things.
So, yeah, just go and try it. Everybody who tries it out gets hooked.
What is something that a typical person could do differently when they’re interacting with people with Down syndrome?
I would say just to be aware of their differences. Many times speech is an issue, for instance. Be aware of the differences and their struggles. Don’t ignore those differences, but don’t let them be a deterrent from interacting.

A post shared by Lisa Eicher (@eicherumba) on Mar 21, 2017 at 2:13pm PDT

Don’t be afraid. There’s nothing scary about them. Yeah, they’re different—and we can all acknowledge that—but that’s a good thing.