There isn't much we wouldn't do for love, and especially after witnessing your partner birth your child, new dads should be pretty much willing to do anything they're asked. But as one new dad shared online, that's easier said than done. The husband admitted that his wife's OBGYN recommended that he help her with a painful breastfeeding complication by uncloggling her milk ducts — with his mouth. And although he did "step up" and unclog the block, he was certainly not happy about it, which led to problems with his wife over his "grossed out" reaction.
The new dad explained that he was surprised to learn that he was the key to unclogging his wife's milk ducts -- and wasn't thrilled to have to assist.
In a post on Reddit, the anonymous dad explained that his wife's "breast ducts were swollen and clogged."
He added, "Her OBGYN said that pumping could help, but nothing is better than the human mouth. … She asked if I could help with the process of getting the milk flowing."
Sure, it wasn't an ideal plan for the dad, but he did it and it was successful. "I got a lot of milk in my mouth (…) and I was doing a combination of sucking and spitting," he wrote. But that doesn't mean he enjoyed it. "I just had a weird reaction to the wording of 'unclogging' which made my stupid brain fail," he wrote.
Seeing that her husband was skeeved by the experience, his wife was ticked. She told him that she was mad that "I think she is unclean" or "her milk is not good enough," he recalled. "We have not slept in a while with new baby, but I don't think I did anything wrong."
Some people read the words "clogged milk duct" and were similarly disgusted.
"I'm grossed out just reading it," one person wrote in the comments.
"I understand tbh," a second commenter chimed-on. "I'm usually not squeamish but I got a little grossed out reading that."
And another person thought that maybe the dad had shown his hand a little too much. "You can't really control what grosses you out. You can probably work on your reaction to it though," the commenter wrote.
Other people thought he should suck it up (literally).
"You're so lucky," one person wrote to him. "Breast milk is freaking amazing, though I'm sorry the experience was sullied by the thought of unclogging."
"My husband was a little grossed out by it, but I didn't really take it personally," another commenter wrote. "You're both sleep deprived, so emotions are going to be running higher than normal."
And a third shared that she also had to have her hubby hoover her duct. "Have done this with my husband. It is no fun for either party — chalk both reactions up to no sleep and lots of stress," the woman wrote.
In the end, the dad decided that a gesture might be the best thing to remedy the bad feelings. "I just bought her flowers and delivered (them) at lunch," he wrote. "She was over the moon happy!!"
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