Okay, please help the inexperienced lactation person...

A colleague left me a note, asking ME for MY opinion! (Whoo-HOO!)

 Seems a client of hers has a bacteria called "germella" growing on her breast. (Is it just me, or does that sound like a made-up name for a bacterium?) The MD says it's a form of strep that can be normal in the baby's mouth. I've never heard of it, and I can't find it in the LACTNET archives.

Anyhow, the mom has had recurrent breast infections. She has repeatedly been treated with antibiotics, but keeps getting infections. Although she didn't mention culturing anything else from the breast, the doc is wondering whether to:

1) treat with antibiotics,
2) treat as a fungal infection, even though apparently none was cultured from mom, and baby is asymptomatic, or
3) treat this particular bacteria as normal, and try to find another cause for the recurrent breast infections?

I will look forward to hearing from anyone, especially our wise colleagues who have been doing lactation stuff since God was a boy. (ducking from well-aimed cybershoes thrown at me)

Thanks in advance,

Tammy in Colorado (the IBCLC exam is July 30th! AIEEE!!)

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