Julie asks:

"This is posted with the patient's permission. She is expecting her 
fifth baby. In the past, she has developed mastitis "the minute her 
milk comes in". It occurs sooner and her symptoms are more severe with 
each pregnancy. She develops enormous swelling, red streaks, and temp 
of 105 almost immediately.She has had lengthy hospitalizations with IV 
antibiotics in the immediate postpartum period with her last two 
babies. Her husband is a physician, and she is under the care of an 
infectious disease specialist. He has helped with her last two 
situations, and has strongly discouraged her from breastfeeding again. 
Actually, she has never made it past the three week mark with lactation 
due to the severe reaction. I suspect there could be a name for this - 
like autoimmune something - and she has mentioned staph, thinks it 
might be MRSA. I've certainly never seen anything like it - it does 
seem as if her body reacts violently to lactogenesis. The plan this 
time is to immediately bind the breasts, and start IV antibiotics. She 
is allergic to most of the common antibiotics, and can tolerate Zyvox 
and Lecithin. Any experience with this?"

Julie,
Except that I am not sure just how engorged this mom becomes, this is 
exactly my experience with my babies. I will never forget when it hit 
when my daughter was born. I was carrying the baby from the kitchen to 
the living room on day 2 (second homebirth) and I literally felt like 
someone had hit me with a truck. I almost fell over in my path. I 
started shaking so violently that I almost dropped the baby.

I immediately had a fever and my breasts were huge and hot. Because I 
had experienced the same thing with my son (although I certainly didn't 
expect it again), I knew exactly what to do. There was no way I could 
have done anything myself, though. I had to get under blankets and 
could not move. My breasts hurt horribly. I took homeopathic belladonna 
right away and after 6 doses was feeling much better (about 2 hours), 
Within less than 24 hours all symptoms resolved. It happened with each 
of my babies and I remember reading about "milk fever" in midwifery 
literature. It was the best description I had ever seen of what I 
experienced.

Jennifer Tow, IBCLC, CT, USA
Intuitive Parenting Network LLC

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