Pearl,
Last year one mother in my practice was hospitalized for particularly
nasty bouts of mastitis, and several others were treated on an outpatient
basis.  A family practice physician I sometimes work with also
hospitalized one of her patients for mastitis the same week.  The
interesting connection was that all were nursing toddlers.  All five
cases occured within about a month.  I suspected it was something going
around among the toddlers that infected the moms, for 4 out of 5 mothers,
this was their first case of mastitis.
        My client said in retrospect that she erred in going to her
internist rather than her Ob/gyn.  He "had never seen a person so ill"
and panicked, thus the hospitalization.  Fortunately, my client was very
assertive, and maintained her breastfeeding relationship with her
toddler despite a 5 day stay and difficulty pumping.
        I personally think that one needs to be extremely ill before the
added stress of seperation from the baby and the difficulties of
maintaining drainage of sore breasts by pumping are outweighed by the
increased medical care and surveillance available in the hospital.
--
Catherine Watson Genna, IBCLC  NYC  mailto:[log in to unmask]