Lyla Wolfenstein posted on "mom with nursing 2 year old - mom has impetigo
covering both breasts/nipples/entire chest.  very painful - on antibiotics,
told not to nurse, b/c very contagious."
She asks how it spreads.  Impetigo spreads on contact.  So the child should
by all logical deduction already have an infection, be getting treated, and
therefore in no need of stopping BF.  But if the mother already has it all
over her upper body, and the child doesn't have it, there is a likely
explanation for it.
Child has probably colonized mother with the bacteria.  Mother would
probably recover more quickly if she used her milk as a topical agent on the
lesions, because her milk is likely to have SCADS of antibodies to the
bacteria, but her skin has not enough to overcome a galloping infection.
The child enjoying the benefits of the protective qualities of mother's milk
is fully capable of colonizing her with pathogens while not being ill due to
the breastfeeding.
I got a documented Giardia lamblia infection from my two year old many long
years ago.  I have never been so physically ill before or since (I have led
a sheltered life) and she never had so much as one loose stool.  She was
breastfed a couple of times a day.  I was not drinking my own milk but had I
known then what I know now I would have been guzzling it.
Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway

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