Yesterday I saw a mother who had very irritated nipples.  She had experience
the same phenomenon with her first child eight years ago and stopped
breastfeeding early on and hand expressed milk for the baby as long as she
could stand it.  With this baby she didn't even try to put the baby to breast
and resolved just to pump and feed the baby the pumped milk.

Within two days of pumping the irritation showed up again.  Now baby is 4
weeks old and she can no longer tolerate pumping because of the pain.  She
finally sought out help.

Her nipples and the areola surrounding the nipples are red and inflamed and
quite swollen.  The skin is so irritated that there are breaks in it where it
opens and bleeds easily.  The redness spreads out and appears almost like a
flower petal.  The skin has a dry, flakey appearance.

The redness is only within the area that doesn't touch the pump parts, so it
is only about 1-1.5 inches across and not all over the breast.  The other LC
who pointed this out to me felt very confident that this was the result of a
systemic yeast infection.

Mother does not have a history of vaginal yeast infections, baby has had a
yeasty diaper rash that has cleared up.

What do you think?  Is this possible?  How would you recommend treating it?

Denise Parker