Acute mastitis is an acute purulent infection of the mammary glands that occurs in postpartum lactating women, especially in primiparous women. The infection is usually caused by the invasion of the nipple from the nipple rupture or crack. It can occur at any time during the lactation period, but is most common 3 to 4 weeks after delivery, so it is also called puerperal mastitis. Probably because I work in an obstetrics and gynecology hospital, there are especially many patients with acute mastitis who come to the clinic because of abscesses. Some of them are first-time patients, and many of them have been seen in other hospitals. These patients who had been seen outside the hospital had generally been treated with antibiotics and after a few days of repetition, an abscess finally formed, and the doctor then advised the patient to “return to milk, incision and drainage, and daily cleaning and dressing changes. These recommendations and the previous treatment are fine, because this is what is written in the textbook, with abscesses should be incised and drained, and the incision should be opened wider so that the drainage can be unobstructed, but also “opposite drainage”, after which a large amount of sterile gauze is filled in, and every day the dirty gauze is removed and new gauze is filled in. Until the wound heals. Look at the pictures to see how painful it is. It takes a long time, often a month or more, because new tissues need to grow out to fill the defective tissues, and both the mother and the baby suffer during this time. The time that should have been spent with the child was spent on medical appointments, hospitalization, and medication changes. When you get well this time, you basically won’t breastfeed anymore either, one because milk production is not as good as it used to be, and the other because your baby is not used to breast milk anymore. And a huge scar will be left on the breast, forming a permanent pain on the chest! So, how is this problem formed? 1, the invasion of bacteria: bacteria from the nipple skin rupture or areola chaps enter, along the lymphatic vessels spread to the breast glandular tissue and the surrounding fat and fibrous tissue, causing acute purulent cellulitis in the breast. There are also a few cases where the infection occurs in other parts of the body and the bacteria spreads to the breast through the blood circulation, causing the onset of the disease. 2. Milk stagnation: Milk is rich in nutrients, which is conducive to the reproduction of bacteria. The causes of milk stagnation are: ① abnormal nipple shape or invagination and failure to correct in time, resulting in poor milk discharge. ② Excessive milk, excess milk can not be discharged in time and retained in the breast, resulting in incomplete emptying. ③ mammary duct obstruction makes breast drainage difficult, such as trauma, surgery caused by large duct obstruction, deformation, inflammation of the duct itself, tumors and external compression, can affect normal breastfeeding. 3, nipple cracking: although breastfeeding is instinctive, but also to have a “past” professor, if the mother failed to master the correct breastfeeding skills after delivery, or the baby’s sucking is not normal, or excessive cleaning, wiping nipples will cause nipple cracking, opening the door for bacteria to enter. To sum up the above words, it basically means, “Bacteria enter through the cracked nipple just in time to encounter milk stagnation, and acute mastitis occurs”. Generally speaking, all of the above conditions must be present for acute mastitis to occur, but of course, there is one more extremely important condition – the body’s immunity. If the body’s immunity is good enough, the inflammation will not make much noise and will soon be eliminated. How is it treated? We found that the concentration of bacteria in the abscess is not too high, so if most of the pus is punctured and extracted and the body’s immunity is relied upon, the abscess cavity will heal quickly. Fortunately, most young mothers have a very good immune system, and with adequate nutritional support during this time, dealing with the bacteria in these abscesses is a piece of cake! They can be cured by using puncture to drain the abscess, topical herbs and short-term oral antibiotics! And the recovery is faster, more economical, less painful and no scarring afterwards! During the treatment period, breastfeeding is stopped for just one week or less, and once the body temperature is normal, breastfeeding is allowed. After many practices, we have formed a more mature treatment experience and achieved extremely satisfactory treatment results. We remind all breastfeeding women that if they find any signs of abscess formation, they should seek medical attention as soon as possible, the sooner they are treated the faster they will recover and the less painful they will be. Below are pictures of the treatment of two patients. This patient with a large abscess took about 1 month of treatment to heal, and the patient with a small abscess was basically well in 2 weeks. ”It’s better to believe in all the books than none of them”! In fact, when doctors are choosing a treatment plan, when they encounter patients who are difficult to decide, they might as well imagine the patients as their own relatives, then it will be much easier to make up their mind!