Okay, I've seen this twice in a year now so it can't be *that* unusual.
But what *is* it?

In both cases, moms had damaged nipples that were slow to heal, even
without nursing.  Both moms pumped with an 015, both found it painful for
the first few strokes.  Both moms found gelatinous slug-like blobs in their
milk.  The blobs are perhaps an inch long and 1/3 inch wide at the widest,
tho because they are mucousy they can be stretched out.  The first mother
found them mainly on the more damaged side.  The second mom has them on
both sides, and was worried because they look like the pictures of milk
sinuses - lenticular in shape - and she wondered if she was sucking her
sinuses out.  She also worried that the blobs might be nipple epidermis,
because when she takes the pump away, these blobs cling to her nipple and
can be peeled off as if you were peeling a sunburn.  Remember the worm-like
extraterrestrial in Disney's "Flight of the Navigator" who, we are told
"has a cold"?  That's sort of what the stuff is like.  What I finally
decided was that the action of the pump sliding her nipple back and forth
in the flange rubs the extruded blobs into all the crevices of her nipple
so that they look as if they started there.

I've suggested lecithin in case these are forming internally, and
antibiotic ointment and saline soaks in case they result somehow from the
surface nipple damage.  Mother #2 says her nipples are getting better.
She's 17 days pp, and her rather large nipples are crusted in a couple
spots w/ yellow "stuff".  She's been using lansinoh.  Baby has been
refusing breast for a week.  I saw them for the first time yesterday.

Mother #1 found that her milk was less blobby when she pumped more often.
She ultimately weaned from the blobby side because we were never able to
make nursing comfortable on that side.  The nipple ever-so-slowly returned
to normal but continued to be painful if she tried to use it.  Neither mom
had been diagnosed w/ mastitis previously, and neither has had traditional
plugged ducts.

What *is* it???

Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC, LLLL  Ithaca, NY