Many women during the lactation period face such a problem as purulent mastitis. This disease is an inflammation of the mammary gland tissue of a purulent nature.
Most often with a similar condition, women who breastfeed for the first time face. Usually purulent mastitis occurs in the 2-3 week of lactation. But purulent mastitis can also occur during the non-lactation period.
Causes of purulent mastitis
Causes the development of acute purulent mastitis during the lactation period to all known Staphylococcus aureus . Infection penetrates the mammary gland through cracks on the nipples and mouth of the milk ducts.
The main conditions for the development of purulent mastitis are: stagnation of milk (more than 3-4 days) and the presence of infection. The causative agents of mastitis may be non-lactative: both epidermal, and golden staphylococcus, and enterobacteria, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
The causes of this form of the disease are most often:
- trauma of mammary glands;
- process of suppuration of neoplasms of mammary glands (both benign and malignant origin);
- implantation into the tissue of the gland of foreign bodies;
- various purulent skin diseases (carbuncles, boils) in the case when the inflammation from the skin surface penetrates into deeper layers of it.
Symptoms of purulent mastitis
With the lactation form of the disease, the heaviness and soreness in the gland first appear, the temperature rises to 38º, chills appear. The sizes of a mammary gland increase, the skin becomes red and painful, the process of expressing milk is complicated. In the gland tissue is found a painful and dense to the touch formation.
If lactostasis persists, then after 3 to 4 days, abscessed mastitis develops. The temperature rises above 38º, the compaction in the mammary gland acquires a sharp painful character.
Symptoms of non-lactating purulent mastitis are less pronounced. In the initial stage of the disease, the main disease appears in the foreground, and only then purulent inflammation of the glandular tissue is added to its symptoms.
How to treat purulent mastitis?
To treat lactational purulent mastitis at the initial stage of its development, conservative therapy measures are applied.
- An important condition for effective treatment is the regular expression of milk. This must be done every three hours.
- Spasm of the milk ducts is removed by intramuscular injections of antispasmodics. For desensitization, antihistamines and antibiotics are used.
- A woman in this state is also shown UHF therapy and wraps with 50% alcohol solution.
In the absence of the result of conservative treatment of purulent mastitis, one can not do without an operation on the mammary gland, the purpose of which is to drain the focus of purulent inflammation.
After the operation, you need to continue taking antibiotics. The cavities of the ulcer are washed with antiseptic means, every day they make breast ligations.
In the treatment of purulent lactation mastitis, folk remedies are also used. But they can be used only after consulting a doctor as an additional therapy.
Heavy forms of non-lactative purulent mastitis, especially with a burdened anamnesis, pose a serious problem.
Prevention of purulent mastitis
Measures to prevent this disease are as follows:
- full nutrition;
- compliance with hygienic rules for the care of the mammary gland;
- treatment of cracks in the nipples ;
- manual decantation of milk.