Is deep stabbing or radiating pain between breastfeeds or white flakes on the nipple a sign of thrush?

Deep stabbing or radiating pain in the breasts between breastfeeds is awful. It's depressing actually, especially if it just goes on and on.

This kind of pain, which mightn't seem to be directly related to the breastfeeding, is not a sign of Candida or thrush, although for many years women were prescribed very long courses of antifungals if this was their experience.

However, if your baby is dragging on your nipple and breast tissue during breastfeeds because of fit and hold problems

• The skin or epithelium of your nipple is likely to become sore and inflamed. The inflammation doesn't stop just because your baby is no longer directly feeding at your breast - so your nipples hurt between feeds, too.

• Also, bending of the nipple during breastfeeding, or too much stretching of the nipple (which result from what scientists call 'deformational forces' or pressures), might cause bruising or microscopic bleeds in the stroma or interior tissues of your nipple. This will result in deep pain in your breast between feeds.

The inflammation from nipple epithelial damage, and also inflammation from bending pressures on the deep tissues of your nipple, may cause

• Dull deep pain

• Sharp deep pain

• Stabbing pain that seems to radiate deeply into the breast

• A burning sensation or pain.

Women experience the pain caused by nipple and breast tissue drag, and the resulting inflammation, in many different ways, but the way you experience the pain doesn't change the diagnosis of nipple and breast tissue drag.

You can find out about the effects of mechanical forces on the nipple here.