I have a question for the collective wisdom here.  Our practice has a 3 day
old patient who was admitted to the PICU and intubated yesterday.  I had
seen the child only a few hours before for a hospital follow-up.  He was
afebrile, vigorously breastfeeding, and well.  He had mild dermal jaundice
and a small rub-type lesion on the back of his head.  Today he is growing
gram positive cocci in his blood!  Though the mom was GBS negative, it's
not clear when the test was done (she was followed by a birthing center and
then transferred to the hospital for failure to progress).  The lesion on
the head is crusted over and was felt to be inconsequential by the peds I
work with on discharge.

The question I have is this:  Mom is pumping bloody thick stuff from her
right breast.  The baby preferred this breast since the other nipple was
flat.  She is not febrile or with any symptoms of illness.  The PI staff is
evidently not allowing any breastmilk at this time to be given to the
infant.  Will culturing the milk have any benefit for this child?

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