Personal experience:  you CAN nurse after breast surgery.  My experience dates
back 24 years, but hosp staff were very good about accomodating my needs, for
the times.  Baby was 6 wks old when a large lump appeared suddenly, approx 3/4"
X 1.5" at about 10 o'clock on the R breast.  I don't recall any redness on the
skin and no or mild tenderness. (memory fades over the years)  Alarmed OB who
discovered it on my scheduled visit, sent me to surgeon who tried needle
aspiration, got nothing, & sched me f/surgery.  If I had known then what I know
now, I would have said, "Try it again".  Hosp staff allowed me t/BF baby in
waiting room the afternoon & evening of admission.  I pumped & saved up to the
time of pre-op meds.  They told me I could pump & save as soon as I was coherent
enough to sit up & carry on a conversation.  I had a shunt, so they were
reluctant to allow me to nurse at all that afternoon, but I pumped & saved.
Went home the next day & resumed BF w/o incident.  It was just a plugged duct
after all, not cancer.  The surgeon tried to make a joke about having more
trouble with milk flowing everywhere than they did with blood-ha -ha.  (No
comment that's printable.)
No further plugged ducts occurred in that area of that breast, or that could be
attributed to the surgery.  No change in milk production.  No problem with milk
production for next baby (tandem nursed) or with plugged ducts.
I suppose my OB & the surgeon learned something from the experience & so did I.
Phyllis Adamson, IBCLC
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