Past Breast Abscess

[hancan]

hi mums...
will my past breast abscess affect breastfeeding my next baby?

I had a breast abscess when my ds was 4 months old. Against doctors advice, i continued to breastfeed, which slowed healing but in the end was the best decision i made. I continued to breast feed until ds was 8 months on just one boob.

Now ds is 15 months..and in 7 months i will have another little pickle to look after. My R breast still feels a bit like there is a mass of scar tissue..and unlike L Boob, you can't get behind the nipple...to hand express...its harder. will this affect my milk supply for baby no.2???

worried...

Glad to hear you didn't stop breastfeeding! It is one of the best things you could have done.

How was the abscess treated? Usually it won't be an issue in future feeding unless some of the ducts were involved (which usually isn't the case), and even then it won't automatically be a concern.

It may just be a case of seeing how things go. The past abscess itself won't make a difference, would guess the firmness you feel won't either. May end up being you have ample supply from the L, and at least some from the R....might be you notice no difference at all. Babies sometimes are able to compensate with how they work the breast. Easier said than done, but try not to worry.

hi there. this happened to me too with my daughter. I had an operation to drain the abcess (yuk - v unpleasant) and like you was left with a mass of scar tissue in the right breast. I had an operation to remove it because I was worried about future breast feeding - just a simple day surgery - but I guess if you are already pregnant this may not be an option for you.

anyway, I have successfully breastfed my son now for 6 months from both breasts. the one which had the abcess produces less milk and is considerably smaller, so I am lopsided, but baby doesn't mind!

hope this helps!

Thankyou so SO much for your messages. I had my breast aspirated (syringed to remove the yukky stuff) over and over...about 7 or 8 times in total - very painful! they actually wanted to do surgery and stuff it full of gauze everyday but i asked them to keep trying to aspirate it and eventually it worked. I am also very lopsided..still after quite a number of months not breastfeeding. i'm ok with that i suppose.

I am not sure if the ducts were affected. I in fact found most of the medical profession pretty unhelpful and unknowlegable esp when it came to breastfeeding. la leche league helped a lot. i think i will prepare myself for less milk in R.

But am most worried it will repeat itself which is prob irrational fear.. i was bottlefeeding the 2am feed which i think was the worse thing for my boobs as they were over full and may have caused the blocked ducts???!!! or maybe i was just unlucky..??

Blocked ducts can make it more likely that an abscess will develop. It doesn't happen very often, so it was possibly a combination of the blocked duct and being unlucky. But now you know, which is part of breastfeeding for most women....learning on the job!

This next time you will obviously be more on the look out for the possibility of blocked ducts or the early development of any potential problems so that you can hopefully sort them out early on if they occur.

I was paranoid at the start with DS that the same thing would happen again, but had no problems at all once feeding was established (now the problem is gettign him to stop BF - but that's another thread!). I don't think it is that commomn - we were just unlucky. my doctor said she's only seen one case as bad as nine in 16 years.