Will this be an issue for breast feeding?

[ardenbird]

I've been happily going along, planning to breast feed baby expected in 6 weeks now and suddenly remembered something doctors said a long time ago.

About 7 years ago I had a mammogram on one breast, and while the lump was benign, the doctors told me that I had displaced breast tissue, separated from the rest of the breast by muscle, up towards to top. Will this be an issue for breast feeding? I presume this tissue will make milk, too, but how will it get out? Is there a risk of infection? If the milk can't get out of this bit, will it interfere with the signals about making milk in the rest of the breast?

I guess if I hadn't had the mammogram, I wouldn't even know. So perhaps it isn't an issue. But the doctors did indicate it was quite unusual. Should I mention this to someone, or just wait and see if there are problems? Any knowledge appreciated!

In all honesty arden I don't know. There are a couple of Bfing Counsellors who come on here so hopefully someone with experience or training will be along soon .

personally i would wait and see if it's an issue?

in terms of feeding the baby you should have no problem having enough milk etc, and you could feed from only one side if you do end up having problems with the other breast.

if it makes milk and the milk can't be released I am guessing that would be a problem, but am not really qualified to comment on that and could only guess what might happen.
hopefully someone who has experience with this can help

Well, I've done some googling and found this is not completely unknown, although rare and the extra tissue is usually in the armpit or along something called the "tail of Spence", which doesn't seem like the place the doctors indicated mine was.

Unfortunately, most of what I found was stories of women struggling to get anyone to take seriously the swollen, painful lump in their armpit. But perhaps since I'm actually know what it is, things will go better?

One encouraging thing was that a medical site mentioned that such tissue can sometimes be connected to the main milk ducts, which means it would empty like normal with the breast. So I can hope for that!

I hate being medically weird. I've had enough experience with medical professionals disbelieving me that I'm now worried even if I say what this is, I won't get taken seriously (several of the stories I found also including being continually brushed aside even once they knew what it was). Those who are BF Counsellors -- what are my chances of someone believing I know what this is if the milk does end up being trapped? And the other thing was I never actually found what people did about the issue, although it looks like they did BF successfully, but continued to have problems with the tissue for months or years after stopping.

i wonder, if it does become problematic, whether you could have it removed?

It's completely possible to just feed solely from one breast so at the very worst, you could do that.

Won't the details from the previous mammogram be in your medical notes for the HPs to double check on? I don't see why they wouldn't beleive you if it's there for them to see.

loopy - unfortunately the mammogram was done in the States. I tried and failed to get a hold of my medical records before I moved, so there's no history over here.

Well, I'll mention it to the midwife next week and see what she says. Hopefully mine is an "attached-to-milk-ducts" kind, which probably no one even knows about unless they have a mammogram.