Mandy Moore is struggling with mastitis while breastfeeding son Ozzie: 'Whew'

Mandy Moore is dealing with a common breastfeeding struggle.

The This Is Us star, 38, took to her Instagram Story on Friday to share a photo of her breastfeeding new son Oscar “Ozzie” Bennett, who she welcomed in October 2022 with husband Taylor Goldsmith. On the photo, Moore wrote, "Trying to cut off this mastitis at the pass. Whew."

Mastitis is defined by the Mayo Clinic as an inflammation of the mammary gland in the breast or udder, typically due to bacterial infection via a damaged nipple or teat.

Moore followed up her post with another Instagram Story pic on Saturday, writing alongside a photo of her holding her newborn, "Turns out mastitis is brutal but antibiotics turned my world around in 24 hours."

She added, "Also, this guy now has the congestion we've all had for weeks, and can't sleep unless he's upright on me. I'll take it."

Moore previously shared her breastfeeding struggles in an August 2021 Instagram post, alongside a photo of her feeding her son August, who was born in February 2021.

“Breastfeeding is not always smooth sailing (clogged ducts, timing life around feedings, pumping for when I’m at work, etc… ) but nursing this baby boy for the past nearly 6 months has been a beautiful, messy and an oh so rewarding experience I will treasure forever,” she wrote at the time. “It goes without saying that #fedisbest and I’m grateful to my body and the tremendous support I’ve had around me (especially in the beginning days and weeks when I had no clue what I was doing) for allowing me this time to nourish my sweet guy.”

In April of 2021, she updated fans again, writing on Instagram, "Home from work at 2 a.m. and been up for a bit feeding and trying to sort through this clogged duct. Thanks for all the sweet messages, fellow nursing friends. Definitely doing football holds and exclusively nursing on the one impacted side, lecithin, massage, hot epsom salt baths, etc. I have a suspicion it’s from being back at work and pumping more often than having him on the boob during the day. All good."

In a recent interview with Yahoo Life, while Moore was eight months pregnant with her latest little one, Moore opened up about feeding expectations after breastfeeding August, who she and Goldsmith nicknamed Gus.

"That was the biggest surprise for me, when it came to the nursing and feeding journey, was just how available you had to be for such a concentrated amount of time," the Because I Said So star explained. "And it was beautiful and enriching and I loved it — and my God, it was the most painful thing. Those first few weeks with like bleeding, cracked nipples and all of that that everybody sort of experiences. And then our journey sort of came to an end.”

She added that while she thought she would feel “emotional” about Gus no longer needing to breastfeed, she was ultimately “OK with it.”

“We added some formula to his diet and then he got onto regular milk and now he's eating food and not drinking milk anymore,” she said at the time. “It's just wild, the different phases that they go through. But yeah, it's certainly not easy, and I have a lot of compassion for however you are able to feed your child. As they say, 'fed is best.'”

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