Coming into this thread late: I had surgery on my breast when I had a 4 month old nursing baby. Milk stasis due to plugged duct, but doc and surgeon thought it was a tumor. (Nursed my niece for 3 days while my SIL was in the hospital with PP hemorrhage. Then she came home. Babies were 10 days apart in age. I developed a chicken egg on outer aspect of R.breast.) They placed a drain tube pointing away from my nipple and I followed instructions to keep it clean and to soak up leaking milk. Others have speculated that the leaking milk also helped keep it free of infection. Baby kept on nursing - no problem. "Hah, hah, we had more trouble with leaking milk than we did with blood, hah, hah." I failed to see the humor in that. Knowing what I know now, I would ask the surgeon to make the incision radially, or perpendicularly to the edge of the areola, instead of circumferally (is that a word?) meaning in an arc parallel to the edge of the areola, giving consideration to the structures that they may be severing underneath the skin. Mine was relatively shallow - no milk stasis above the incision after the next baby, but if it were deeper, there may well have been a problem with that section. Hope this helps. Phyllis ---- [log in to unmask] wrote: > Kim, you are correct this mom's breast will not be completely weaned in 4 > days. > I am not an expert on this subject but I have read and heard lectures and > what I heard is a better approach is to allow drainage from the lumpectomy > site. Even with milk coming from the wound it will eventually heal. If they try > and suture it up she runs the risk of a milk fistula. > You may ask permission from the mother to discuss this with the surgeon. > Contact Susan Love's web site and see if they can help you with this. > Good luck to this mom. > Ann Perry, RN IBCLC > Boston, MA > > -- Phyllis Adamson, IBCLC, RLC Glendale, AZ. [log in to unmask] *********************************************** Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html Mail all commands to [log in to unmask] To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or [log in to unmask]) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet or ([log in to unmask]) To reach list owners: [log in to unmask]