On Tue, 29 May 2007  LuAnn Smith wrote:

"....  I have been suspecting for some time, that some babies must have a 
variation in their saliva that causes nipple pain and a scalded skin 
appearance, looking an awful lot like yeast and yet it is apparently not.

I wonder if a culture of the babies oropharynx would ever give us info on 
strep or staph growth. I'd also love to see a study on the ph levels of 
saliva in babies that are diagnosed with reflux versus those who
are not  and see how those levels correlate to nipple soreness in mothers.
...."

Hi LuAnne

Your last comment gave me a new clue.  Some years ago at a conference I met a breastfeeding counsellor who had seen two mothers with excruciatingly sore, scalded-looking nipples, that both turned out to be from the infant's gastric acid.  One baby had gastro-oesophageal reflux.  The other had pyloric stonosis.  One mother stopped breastfeeding and hre nipples healed.  The other had her nipples clear up as soon as the baby was treated.  The nipple damage was in fact an acid burn.

Other possibilities are if the baby is ingesting anything that the mother's skin is sensitive to - e.g. the dye in medications, solids, even toothpaste (in an older baby).

Cheers
Virginia
(back on lactnet today after being "nomail" for a few days)

Virginia Thorley, OAM, PhD, IBCLC
Lactation Consultant (original cohort of 1985).
Cultural historian of the History of Medicine.
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
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