Recently had a call from a mother of a 9 months old who said she had a
sore breast.  She said she pumped with an Evenflo pump (which she says
she has been using effectively for many months).  She passed gross blood
with clots on Thursday and Friday  and then felt better.  She called me
on Sunday because the breast was getting sore again.

She says her physician recently told her during a routine exam that she
had a cyst in her breast.

My advice was to call her physician and to switch to a hospital grade
electric pump or preferably to hand expression.  I told her that the
worst that would happen to the baby if she drank milk with blood in it
would be that she would vomit.  (I will not have an opportunity to see
this patient, at least not soon.)  I told her that if she chose to use
the Evenflo pump, she needed to release the suction every 2-3 seconds.
She had been releasing it irregularly as she felt the need (sounded like
probably rather infrequently).

Does this sound like a cyst?  (I know that my dad passed blood in his
urine from cysts in his kidneys.)

Bonnie Jones, RN, ICCE, IBCLC
from the sunny S.W. USA