How I healed mastitis without antibiotics

This post contains affiliate links, which means I earn a small commission at no extra charge to you

After almost 3 years of breastfeeding, I had my first case of mastitis a couple of weeks ago. Thankfully I was able to overcome it without antibiotics.

I believe antibiotics are there for a reason and can be lifesaving, but I try very hard to avoid them when possible, since antibiotics kill both the bad and good gut bacteria, and increases your risk of getting thrush (yeast infection).

I meet so many moms who struggle with clogged ducts, which then leads to mastitis. It is extremely painful. They then quickly jump to taking antibiotics, even at the first sign of mastitis, but mastitis in itself is not an infection, it’s just inflammation of the breast, which could turn into mastitis, which is why you want to be proactive…

In this blog post, I am going to share how I overcame mastitis with Breast Gymnastics, a term coined by Maya Bolman and some other natural remedies I did. Before going into how I overcame mastitis without antibiotics, I wanted to review some signs of clogged ducts and mastitis.

Some common symptoms of clogged ducts are:

a lump in one area of your breast that’s painful to the touch
engorgement around the lump
pain or swelling near the lump
discomfort that sometimes subsides after feeding/pumping
milk plug/blister (bleb) at the opening of your nipple
movement of the lump over time

When clogged ducts are not addressed, they can turn into what is known as mastitis, which is inflammation of the breasts, which can quickly turn into infection of the breast.

Symptoms of mastitis may come on suddenly and include:

fever of 101°F (38.3°C) or higher. If fever persists for more than 24hrs, it’s recommended to get antibiotics
flu-like symptoms (chills and body aches)
warmth, swelling, and tenderness of the whole breast
breast lump or thickened breast tissue
burning sensation and/or discomfort while nursing/pumping
redness on the affected skin (may be wedge-shaped)

At the first sign of these issues, I have seen many mothers digging into their breasts and putting hot packs on their breasts, but mastitis (and clogged ducts) are inflammation and we want COLD compresses to help with inflammation as well as GENTLE touch and light strokes.

This is where breast gymnastics comes in. Breast gymnastics is an exercise where you gently (and ever so gently) pick up your breasts and move them around, providing your breast gentle movement.

We all know movement and stretching is important to our health. It helps with our circulation and helps get blood flowing. Well our breasts, which don’t get any movement, need light gentle movement and stretching for proper breast health.

When you pick up your breasts and feel that stretch and move them side to side, you’re essentially elongating those ducts and getting milk flowing, which prevents and alleviates clogged ducts!

Below is a video by Maya Bolman on how to do the exercises, you can also watch my Instagram Reel

My Mastitis situation

I had a pretty stressful weekend, but honestly I didn’t think it was anything out of the ordinary. It was a Sunday afternoon, and I noticed my left breast was feeling really sore, like I had a bruise, but I didn’t notice any hard clogs or lumps.

I immediately started doing breast gymnastics and gentle massages around the area. It was painful but I made sure to be very gentle and just keep moving my breasts around. That evening my breast started to get pink, I felt fatigue and sore, but no fever. I immediately began my protocol (written out below). Monday, it was still pink and very tender and Monday is when I became a little more adamant with my protocol and did things every couple hours. By Tuesday morning, it was completely GONE. It was as if nothing even happened! You can’t imagine how relieved I felt!

My Mastitis Protocol

Breast Care

Nurse nurse nurse or pump – we want to drain the breast, drain the possible infection, and remove any clogs
Put COLD compresses, no heat! We want to help with the inflammation by putting cold on it
Do breast gymnastics every 30mins-1hr – just keep your breasts moving. Do them before/after nursing, whenever you use the bathroom etc
Do Therapeutic Breast Massage. I added tea tree essential oil with fractionated coconut oil and did a gentle breast massage. Tea tree is an antibacterial agent. Just be sure to wash your breast before nursing baby

Immune Support

I ate 2-3 garlic cloves whole and just chewed that with orange juice (I’m sure you could cut them up, but I just ate them whole)
Took Emergen-C with electrolytes and my adrenal cocktail
REST – I went to bed early when my kids did and did very minimal house work. I just took it nice and slow

Nutrition

I continued taking my high quality prenatal vitamin – Needed (use promocode ALOHA20 for 20% off)
My meals were warm and nourishing – a chicken ginger (anti-inflammatory) soup with a variety of veggies. I also had a tuna sandwich
Drank kefir and ate kimchi which are both great sources of probiotics.
- *Studies have shown that the strains lactobacillus fermentum and lactobacillus salivarius can help with mastitis. Read the research here and here
- I unfortunately didn’t have these strains at the time but I plan to get this brand

So to recap, mastitis in itself is NOT an automatic infection to where you need antibiotics. Mastitis just means inflammation of the breast. If you don’t take action soon, it could lead to infection.

I know so many parents jump to antibiotics at the first sign of mastitis, but I encourage you to try and do some breast gymnastics, do therapeutic breast massage, nurse/pump, strengthen your immune system, and REST. But of course if things don’t improve, see your OB and address the infection with possible antibiotics. I’m a big proponent of taking preventative approaches and trying to do things holistically, but if things get worse and you develop a fever and it persists, talk to your OBGYN ASAP.

If you want to learn more about breast gymnastics and therapeutic breast massage as well as learning more about clogged ducts and mastitis, check out this IG Live I did with Maya Bolman. These are some tips I give my clients through one-on-one consults. If you have any questions or would like to schedule a consult, click this link.