Brooklyn Decker has recently opened up about her experience with severe mastitis (inflammation of the breast).
The 34-year-old actress recalled how wearing an underwire bra may have caused breast inflammation.
In this week’s episode of PEOPLE’s podcast Me Becoming Mom, Decker said, “What I didn’t realize until I had mastitis — eight months postpartum with a 104 fever, it was horrible — what I didn’t realize which I should’ve known is that underwire bras can cause mastitis and can affect milk production and all that.”
Decker, who has teamed up with Bodily, said that at the time, she was shooting and “in production so [she] was wearing proper undergarments under costumes and they were like this late in the game that causes mastitis.”
Bodily provides research-backed information and expert-designed products for pregnancy, pregnancy loss, birth recovery, postpartum, and breastfeeding.
Decker told host Zoë Ruderman, Head of Digital at PEOPLE, “You have underwire sitting on a duct and it can turn badly. It was horribly painful. It was almost as if I was in a fever dream.”
The actress has also spoken about her difficult postpartum recovery, including bleeding nipples and blood clots.
She told Ruderman, “I remember when Hank [her son] was feeding once, and this was in the first week of being home with him, he pulled off my breast, and it was after a feeding, and he had blood dripping down his lip. I burst into tears because I’m like, ‘What have I done? What did I do to him? He’s gonna get sick.’”
Decker continued, “So I called his pediatrician and she’s like, ‘Honey, that’s totally normal, that’s totally fine. Your body’s learning how to do this.’ But again it’s one of those things wherein the moment, it is so painful you’re crying through it. And your baby comes off and there’s blood on their face because you’re bleeding onto them. And you think you’re causing all this harm and it’s a totally normal experience.”
