It's the little tablet which breast feeding mothers suffering mastitis are buying up big. A probiotic called Qiara was launched on the market by small Melbourne business Puremedic about two years ago and has experienced a 500 per cent increase in sales in the last year.
The probiotic contains the patented breast milk isolated strain Lactobacillus Fermentum which may help to relieve or reduce breast pain and discomfort associated with mastitis, or reduce the recurrence of mastitis.
Mastitis and colic
New mum Lisa Rozen Grey has been using Qiara since her daughter Isabella was six weeks old after it was recommended to help Isabella with colic as well as to help prevent mastitis.
"She’s almost six months old and I haven’t experienced any mastitis and she was cured from colic almost immediately," says Grey.
Grey used Qiara in conjunction with a natural colic treatment and says while Qiara is expensive at $79 a packet, it was worth it for her.
"Isabella was clearly in a lot of pain and crying for six to seven hours a night and even during the day nobody was getting any help and was really unsettled," she says. "Now we are getting sleep and we have a happy baby. It just made life a lot easier for all of us."
However Desiree Brick says she had limited success with Qiara which she used when breastfeeding both her sons. "I used Qiara with my first for about one year and with my second one [for] about 6 months," she says. "Unfortunately I still got mastitis from it but it did help with my babies settling from gassy tummies."
