# Ouch! Baby's top teeth hurting/breaking skin on nipple.



## NYCVeg (Jan 31, 2005)

Dd is 10 months old. We have had more than our fair share of nursing problems. She has 4 teeth--2 on top, 2 on the bottom. The teeth have always irritated my nipples and sometimes downright hurt (I have a lot of sensitivity, due to Raynaud's and just sensitive skin in general). Today, she actually broke the skin with her top teeth. She is NOT biting--she's just nursing the way she always nurses.

I'm not sure what to do. I can't imagine how I'm going to latch her back onto that side until it heals. More problematically, I'm not sure what to do to make the irritation better. Believe me, after months of severe pain, crying through every nursing, etc., I'm NOT ready to go back to that place.

ETA: She does not take a bottle at all and does not eat any solids yet.

Please please please, I would appreciate ANY help or suggestions anyone might have.


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## NYCVeg (Jan 31, 2005)

No one has experienced this?







:


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## dukeswalker (Feb 1, 2003)

Honestly, what I have done in the past is tell her that her teeth are hurting mama and that she needs to open up real big - then I show her how big to open her mouth and then have her latch on with her mouth wide open and tongue out...it always seemed to work for us!


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## NotTheOnlyOne (Oct 23, 2006)

my ds is 8 months old and has 6 teeth. 4 on the top, 2 on the bottom. I have the same problem, even down to the bleeding nipple. If he latches on and it hurts, I break the latch by sticking my finger in the courner of his mouth and have him latch on again. We keep trying until he gets on far enough that it doesnt hurt. You just need to make sure she is getting more of your areola in her mouth. Wide mouth, pull her in to you while she is latching to help her.


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## cchrissyy (Apr 22, 2003)

if the skin is broken, you may need a nipple sheild so that future nursings don't hurt. even with proper positioning the pulling on broken skin is painful and IME a nipple sheild helps... just for a couple times but of course not a bit more than is necesary for the pain because it's bad for your continued milk supply.

I had thrush with broken skin when #3 was a newborn and I used the sheild maybe 4 times over 2 days and the break let the little cuts heal up enough to nurse, we're still going strong!


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## lrlittle (Nov 11, 2005)

Same thing happened with us, at the same time, too. Hurts bad! Changing DS's head position helped a lot. I'm probably not going to explain it very clearly, but I would tilt his head back and up more so that his top teeth weren't touching so much. And I would kind of hold his head while he was nursing until I was sure that his teeth weren't touching. He didn't seem to mind!

Does it help if you nurse in a different position altogether? Like football hold, lying down, etc?


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## KimProbable (Jun 22, 2005)

I experienced sudden pain when nursing DS and ended up with raw areas on my areolas . It turned out that two of his top teeth had cavities which caused them to crumble. He ended up with jagged edges on his teeth which scraped me when he nursed.

It's a long shot that your situation would be the same, but it's at least worth looking at his teeth. DS was only around a year, by the way, and still ended up with such terrible cavities in his teeth.


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## NYCVeg (Jan 31, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *dukeswalker* 
Honestly, what I have done in the past is tell her that her teeth are hurting mama and that she needs to open up real big - then I show her how big to open her mouth and then have her latch on with her mouth wide open and tongue out...it always seemed to work for us!

I'm trying that, but I don't think she gets it. She just laughs at me--I think she thinks I'm making faces at her.









Quote:


Originally Posted by *momtosimon* 
You just need to make sure she is getting more of your areola in her mouth. Wide mouth, pull her in to you while she is latching to help her.

Trying that, too. I always do help her latch--one of the residual issues from all of our nursing problems is that she ALWAYS waits to be pulled onto the breast (I think from the months that nursing was so painful for me--I was tense, suffering from ppd, crying through every nursing--I think it made her reticent to latch on w/o "permission"). I'm trying to get as much boob in there as I can. My breasts are shaped differently, though, and it's much harder on the left side (the side that's injured).

Quote:


Originally Posted by *cchrissyy* 
if the skin is broken, you may need a nipple sheild so that future nursings don't hurt. even with proper positioning the pulling on broken skin is painful and IME a nipple sheild helps... just for a couple times but of course not a bit more than is necesary for the pain because it's bad for your continued milk supply.

I had thrush with broken skin when #3 was a newborn and I used the sheild maybe 4 times over 2 days and the break let the little cuts heal up enough to nurse, we're still going strong!

We've tried a shield a couple of times and she absolutely won't do it. I don't like them much, either. When I had seriously damaged nipples (blisters, bleeding, cracks), I still actually preferred baby on breast. The break looks like it's scabbed over (I've been using Lansinoh, but I guess the "wet healing" didn't take), but still there.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *lrlittle* 
Same thing happened with us, at the same time, too. Hurts bad! Changing DS's head position helped a lot. I'm probably not going to explain it very clearly, but I would tilt his head back and up more so that his top teeth weren't touching so much. And I would kind of hold his head while he was nursing until I was sure that his teeth weren't touching. He didn't seem to mind!

Does it help if you nurse in a different position altogether? Like football hold, lying down, etc?

Will definitely try the tilting! We can't nurse lying down at all (she gets a shallow latch, I have a hard time pulling her on, plus my not-so-big breasts make it hard), but I am doing a sort of modified football hold on the injured side right now. I'm not loving it--she's very tall and my torso is very short, so to get her on that way, it's actually a shallower latch than I'd like), but it does keep her teeth off the injury. The breast actually hurts more after she comes off--it's a little burny for a while.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *KimProbable* 
I experienced sudden pain when nursing DS and ended up with raw areas on my areolas . It turned out that two of his top teeth had cavities which caused them to crumble. He ended up with jagged edges on his teeth which scraped me when he nursed.

It's a long shot that your situation would be the same, but it's at least worth looking at his teeth. DS was only around a year, by the way, and still ended up with such terrible cavities in his teeth.

Wow! That's crazy! I must say, this isn't "sudden"--dd's teeth, both top and bottom, have irritated me since she got them (I have Raynaud's so my nipples are very sensitive and more prone to damage). The top teeth are pretty new--has only had them a month--and she doesn't eat any solids. I doubt it's crumbling teeth, since I CAN get a less irritating latch, especially on the right side. Worth checking out, though. How did you diagnose the cavities? Could you tell just by looking?

Thanks for the replies. We've had so many nursing problems that everything new just feels like, "Oh, come on--what NOW?"--I'm like the Job of nursing.


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