Kristin Cavallari has revealed an unusual way her husband Jay Cutler helped her out while breastfeeding. A new trailer from the E! reality show Very Cavallari shows Cavallari telling her shocked friends that Cutler helped her unclog her milk ducts by “sucking harder than he’s ever sucked.”
“I had like, major clogged ducts,” Cavallari tells her friends in the clip. “Jay had to get them out for me. Sucking harder than he’s ever sucked.”
“And you know what? Saved my life,” she says in an interview clip a second later.
Clogged or blocked milk ducts occur when breast milk isn’t completely emptied during a feeding. The remaining milk can clog the milk ducts, causing a blockage. One 2011 study found that 67.5% of breastfeeding women experienced mastitis, an inflammation of the breast often caused by clogged milk ducts, and an additional 4.5% of breastfeeding women experienced clogged milk ducts without mastitis. Both conditions lead to painful, sore breasts, and mastitis may also include a fever and chills. Mastitis can be treated with antibiotics, while clogged ducts can usually be unclogged at home, or with the help of a doctor.
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According to What To Expect, clogged ducts are usually treated by emptying the breast through another feeding or pumping; applying a warm compress or standing in the steam from a warm shower; massaging the breast; changing feeding positions; and avoiding underwire bras and tight shirts.
So Cutler’s method is a bit unusual — but not that unusual. On a 2018 episode of her webseries Momsplaining, Kristen Bell revealed her husband Dax Shepherd helped her out in the same way. “I said to my husband, ‘I really need you to suck this out. We could talk about it, we could be weird about it, or you could just go ahead and nurse,’” she said. “He pulled it out. He had a cup next to him. He was pulling out and spitting into this cup, and I’ve never been more in love in my life.”
Similar tips appear on forums for new parents and on parenting websites, and a breastfeeding expert even recommended having a partner suck to relieve a clogged milk duct in an interview with TIME in 2014. So while Cavallari’s method may be a little creative, we’re glad it worked for her.
Watch the trailer below.