This is in part from personal experience. There is no reason for mom to wean
before this surgery. It is inconvenient for the surgical team to work on a
lactating breast, but if they plan for it, they can handle it. She will
likely have a drain tube in the incision for a week or so after the surgery.
There is NO reason for her to avoid breastfeeding on that breast. In fact,
she can begin breastfeeding again as soon as she is recovered enough to
return to her room, or go home, if this is outpatient surgery. She can
continue breastfeeding right up to the time of her pre-surgical meds if they
will allow baby that far into the hospital. Those meds will send her off to
La-La Land, ie: she can't handle her baby. That might be the best way to
have her breast as empty as possible prior to surgery.
When my SIL, who had delivered 10 days after I did, hemorraged (sp?), I took
on her baby (butterfly sucker) along with my own (hoover vacuum). My MIL
moved in and my DH moved to his sister's house for this family emergency.
3-4 days later, she came home and resumed nursing her baby. 3-4 days after
that, I had a goose-egg, or so it seemed, in one breast. OB sent me to a
surgeon. He tried to aspirate & got nothing. He set me up for surgery. Yes,
it was a major sized plugged duct. The surgeon tried to make light of it,
he-he, they had more trouble with milk flowing than they did with blood,
he-he. I wasn't laughing.
At any rate, when they aspirate the lump and get nothing, they are very
concerned that it's a tumor. They expect to get fluid if it's a cyst or
plugged duct or galactocele. In my case, he missed!! and so came to an
incorrect conclusion. I don't recall the aspiration hurting that much. If I
knew then what I know now, I would have told him to try again. (Or maybe I
would have known what it was and never been to the surgeon's office in the
first place.)
Best wishes to your friend for a good outcome. Stats show that most of
these are benign, but this always makes us fearful.
Phyllis Adamson, IBCLC
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