The first time I saw stringy - or mucousy - milk was in a mom who was pumping with a soft "massaging" type flange on a lowcost pump (don't remember the brand; probably 10 years ago).  It looked to me as if it was mashing her nipple.  *As soon as* she switched to a good quality pump with a hard flange, the stringiness ended.

I've also seen outright blobs - one as big as the yolk of a small egg - in moms with infections.  The head of Cornell Univ's "dairy mastitis lab" said they're not uncommon in cows.  Staph aureus, he said, has a coagulating effect and can cause milk to blob.  He figured we didn't see it often in humans because we catch mastitis sooner.  If what we see is considered "sooner," then I really feel for the cows!

I've never been able to fit the Staph aureus notion together with the stringy milk caused by the pump.  If she'd really had an infection, would the stringiness have ended with the very next pumping?  Did pressing her nipple somehow cause coagulation without an infective process?  

Anyway, coagulated milk and Staph aureus infections are known to go together - there are 3 pictures of clumped milk in the Breastfeeding Atlas.  And I've seen it caused (apparently) for purely mechanical reasons.  Maybe your mom has never gotten over her initial mastitis.  But certainly the place to start is with different design/size flanges and a different pump.

Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC  Ithaca, NY  USA
www.wiessinger.baka.com

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