Colleagues,

I was stumped with a call from the mother of an 11 1/2 month old baby today.  She has sharp pains in her breast, unrelated to feedings.  She has been working for the past 6 months and her feeding patterns have not changed.  Her baby feeds whenever she wants when mom is home and in the morning a couple of times before mom goes to work, then when mom is home in the evening.  The baby has been sleeping through the night for quite a while.  She describes this pain as "deep, stabbing, and aching."   She says is happens when she is awake and lasts for 30 seconds, and repeats every 5 to 60 minutes with no particular pattern.  She does not pump her breasts at work.  She says the pain began after this past weekend.  The baby was away from her (went to have a weekend with her father who does not reside with the mother) and she rented an electric breast pump for the weekend.  She pumped her breasts 4 to 5 times a day while the baby was away.  Neither the baby nor the mother have any obvious signs of thrush, it is not a positioning problem.  The pain is equal in both breasts.  She does not lean over to feed.  Her bra is the same one she has been wearing for the past 6 months.  When she used the breast pump, she used it on the lowest setting and experienced no discomfort.  She has not been doing any strenuous lifting activity.  She has not been treated with antibiotics and does not have cracked in her breasts.  While she has periods, this is unrelated to premenstrual symptoms.  Her breasts are not large.  She does not have fibrocystic disease and is not dieting. She is experiencing no pain in any other part of her body.  The only thing different in this equation is that the mom pumped last weekend.  Any ideas???  

TIA!

Jeanne Hagreen, RN, BSN, IBCLC
"One LC in the wilderness"

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