Mastitis is divided into acute and chronic, and those that occur during lactation are called acute mastitis, which is discussed here. Those that occur during the non-lactation period are called chronic mastitis, which will be discussed later. The main cause: milk stagnation + bacterial infection. Main manifestations: systemic: chills, fever, malaise. Local: hard lumps, redness, swelling, heat and pain. Li Peng, Department of Breast and Thyroid Surgery, Peking University Shenzhen Hospital Treatment: Anti-inflammatory and symptomatic when no abscess is formed. When an abscess is formed, surgical incision is made to drain the pus. Prevention: 1. Empty the milk regularly to prevent stasis Especially when the baby is small and the amount of food is also small, and the pregnant woman has more milk, the milk is prone to stasis. Therefore, it needs to be emptied regularly, or after each nursing session, rather than necessarily waiting for the rise and then emptying. Emptying method: first breastfeed the baby, then suck out with a breast pump, and finally you can massage your breasts with your hands to make the milk emptied more cleanly. You can ask a specialist or a lactation specialist with a good reputation to guide you in the massage technique to achieve better results. The cleaner the last emptying, the more milk will be produced next time, the smoother it will be, the less effort the baby will have to suck, the more he will love to eat, the cleaner he will eat, and this will form a virtuous circle. 2, pay attention to nipple hygiene After each sucking, use a clean towel with warm water to wash the milk on the nipples, because the milk contains sugar, air-drying will easily cause nipple cracking. If the nipples are cracked due to the suction of the breast pump or the teething of the older children, you can buy some goat fat cream at the mother and baby store and apply it every time you wash your nipples, which protects them and does not matter if the children eat it in their stomachs, the good thing is that the skin of the nipples is amazing and heals very fast, so it usually heals quickly. Minimally invasive treatment for breast abscesses When an abscess is formed from mastitis, instead of cutting open and draining the pus, a tube is inserted to drain it and it is flushed regularly. It is not excluded that some small abscess patients are successfully treated by this method, but I personally strongly disagree with this method for the following reasons: The key to the treatment of breast abscess is to completely drain the abscess and necrotic tissue, so theoretically, the larger the incision, the better. The actual effect of cutting open the pus is to turn the pus cavity into a shape with a large mouth and a small bottom, which is conducive to the discharge of abscesses and necrotic tissue, while cannula drainage cannot achieve this effect, and once the abscesses and necrotic tissue are not completely discharged, the formation of sinus tracts and chronic granulomas will be prolonged and very troublesome in the future. The larger the incision, the slower it grows, right? Breast tissue is amazing, the more thoroughly the abscess and necrotic tissue are discharged, the faster the healing process will be.