I am a hospital-based Lactation Consultant in a Level II hospital in Northern Michigan. I work with inpatients, outpatients and counsel through a Breastfeeding telephone warmline. The following situation has me mystified and I'm wondering if any of you can suggest possible causes and/or management strategies for this mom. This mother is currently breastfeeding her third baby. He is five months old and is growing and thriving. Mother reports none of the usual breastfeeding problems such as sore nipples, engorgement, supply or let down problems or mastitis. Suddenly, at age four months, her son refused to breastfeed from the right breast. This mom further reports that all her babies suddenly refused to feed from the right breast. She doesn't recall if the refusal happened at the same age--just that it was sudden. She continued to feed from the left breast and the right breast slowly stopped producing milk and became comfortable (following initial engorgement). Now that she is going through this for the third time, she is also real curious about the reason. She expressed some milk from both breasts and tasted it. She describes the milk from the left breast as sweet and the milk from the right breast (the rejected one) as "sour" (she says it doesn't taste salty, but sour). She denies decreased production or problems with let-down on the right breast prior to this refusal. She has continued to breastfeed on the left breast only for the past month. Her baby continues to grow & be satisfied. This mom recently read or heard somewhere of a connection between breast refusal and breast cancer, so she is more concerned this time. Can any of you shed any light on this? TIA Amy Mueller, BSN, RN, IBCLC Traverse City [log in to unmask]