Breast Engorgement: Symptoms

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Symptoms

Symptoms of breast engorgement happen when the breasts produce and fill with milk but little milk is removed from them. Milk overfills and engorges the breasts.

If your breasts are engorged, you may notice the following:

• Breasts are swollen, firm, and painful. If severely engorged, breasts are very swollen, hard, shiny, warm, and slightly lumpy to the touch.
• Your nipple may flatten out and the dark area around the nipple, called the areola, may be very hard.
  • Your baby may have trouble latching on to a flattened, hard nipple and may not be able to get enough milk out. See a picture of proper latch-on for breast-feeding .
  • If your baby is not able to get enough milk, he or she will suck harder than usual during nursing and want to nurse more often.
  • Your nipples may become damaged by your baby's efforts to latch on well and get enough milk.
• You have a slight fever of around .
• The lymph nodes in your armpits may be slightly swollen and tender.

Complications of engorgement

If you are breast-feeding and don't relieve breast engorgement, you are likely to develop one or both of the following:

• Blocked milk duct
• Breast infection, called mastitis. (See a picture of mastitis .)

Call your doctor now if you have:

• Increasing pain in one area of the breast.
• Increasing redness in one area of the breast or red streaks extending away from an area of the breast.
• Drainage of pus from the nipple or another area of the breast.
• A fever of 101 F (38.5 C) or higher.

Call your doctor today if you have:

• Swollen glands (lymph nodes) in the neck or armpit.
• A fever less than 101 F (38.5 C).

Call your doctor in 24 hours if you have cracked and bleeding nipples after trying home treatment.

See help for blocked milk ducts and breast infection (mastitis). For more information, see the topic Mastitis While Breast-Feeding.

Last updated:	July 05, 2007
Author:	Kathe Gallagher, MSW
Reviewed By:	Adam Husney, MD - Family Medicine, Deborah A. Penava, BA, MD, FRCSC, MPH - Obstetrics and Gynecology
Editors:	Kathleen M. Ariss, MS, Pat Truman, MATC