Clinical inquiry: what's the best way to relieve mastitis in breastfeeding mothers?

Aurelie Cabou1, Sarah Babineau, Leilani St Anna

  • 1Swedish Family Medicine, Residency-First Hill, Seattle, WA, USA.

Frequent breast emptying helps both infectious and noninfectious mastitis. Antibiotics may be useful for women with positive milk cultures, but their utility for treating undifferentiated mastitis is unknown. Consider prescribing antibiotics for women whose mastitis symptoms don' t improve after 12 to 24 hours of frequent breast emptying.

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