Katherine:

    The concept of a higher bacterial count is new to me.. abscess is an area
that i have done a bit on research into.....

    albeit potentially messy, with weeping from the insicion and milk weeping
also....I have not read any REAL documentation that there is any
contraindication.

     The texts that I looked at all spoke of "the authorities...." while
never mentioning who they were or where thier data came from.

     Re: the infections origionating from the infant... this too is found in
the text also authored by unnamed authorities ... I do not recall seeing that
cultures from the infant were done to verify this....

     Helene Cantlie in her article " treatment of acute puerperal mastitis
and breast abscess" Can Fam Phy 1988 34P2221-2227 says: "there is no
documented evidence of harm to the infant from nursing at the affected
rbeast, even in cases of breast abscess"

    A case report in Am J Obstet Gynecol 1989 161:120. Mentions that the
patienct was advised to discontinue nursing but when I queried the author  he
explained that she decided to quit....sorry this was an article on
methaicillin resistant staph.

    I spoke with Dr. S. Love when a mother that I was working with developed
an abscess...She felt, and it is in her book, that abscess is not a
contraindicaiton.

    The infectious disease specialist who saw the mother indicated that an
infection such as this mother had was most likely hospital born....she
ceritanly had it before she was first seen in my office at 19 days
postpartum.

    If a mother has severe mastitis or an abscess, she will be put on an
antibiotic. This will be in the milk therefore if there is an increase in
bacterial count, as yet unsubstaniated to my knowledge, the antibodies and
antibiotics are there as well.

            I hope this helps....

                                     Patricia