A breast infection can occur due to different reasons but the most common cause of breast infection is breastfeeding. The breast infection from breastfeeding is also known as mastitis, which means inflammation of breast tissues. The symptoms of breast feeding are swollen breasts, redness, soreness and pain.
It is definitely very depressing when you have breast infection. There are many medicines, supplements available in the market for healing breast infection but if you are worried about side effects, you can try some very easy and simple home remedies. Some of the best home remedies for breast infection are given here:
Home Remedies For Breast Infection
Castor Oil
You can use castor oil at home for massaging your breasts if you are suffering from a breast infection. Castor oil is rich in Miconazole which acts as an antifungal helping to cure mastitis by removing the infection, hence the inflammation. Massage the infected breast with castor oil daily by applying it directly at the affected area.
Using two or three fingers, massage with castor oil in circular motion and from different angles. Change the movement from clockwise to counterclockwise at times. Continue this for a couple of weeks and this will help to a great extent.
Cabbage Leaves
Cabbage leaves are something you can readily find in your refrigerator’s vegetable tray. These leaves come in handy when you have a breast infection. Cabbage leaves will give you best results if you start using them just when you start seeing signs of infection. However, if the infection has advanced, even then this process will give you relief.
Place cold cabbage leaves on your breasts directly and keep them for one to two hours. Cabbage leaves have amino acid methionine which acts as anti-irritant and antibiotic and which helps to reduce mastitis. You can do this for two or three days but do not keep the leaves on continuously. Use the leaves throughout the day but give time gaps in between.
Hot Massage
The easiest of the ways to nurse your infected breasts is to do a hot massage. Instead of massaging with some ointment from the market, you can do oil massage the infected breasts easily at home, using something which retains heat for a very long time.
Fill up a sock with hot cooked rice. This rice sock will retain heat for almost one hour. You can directly place the rice sock under your brassiere for a while and massage the breasts using the rice sock. The heat provides a soothing relief to the sore breasts.
Raw Garlic
Another natural ingredient which is readily available at your house is raw garlic. Raw garlic can be used effectively to treat mastitis or inflamed breasts. Garlic contains allicin which is converted to allicin when crushed and this acts as an antibiotic.
Try to eat two to five cloves of raw garlic per day to relieve you from mastitis.Chewing raw garlic releases the allicin which reduces the inflammation. The specification is that the garlic has to be completely raw. This home remedy is sure to provide you with results than what artificial medication provide.
Compress
Other than massage on the infected breasts, you can also use compress on them. Using hot and cold compress alternatively will also cure your inflamed breasts. Hot compress helps to improve the circulation and unclogging the milk ducts thereby releasing milk easily and cold compress will help reduce the discomfort from soreness.
So using alternate hot and cold compress will relieve you of the soreness and pain and also reduce the inflammation simultaneously thereby reducing mastitis.