Armpit lump in late pregnancy

[Clarkey86]

Hi all,

I’m 36 weeks pregnant.
About 5-6 weeks ago now I noticed a pea sized lump in my armpit, it’s squishy and moves around a fair bit but isn’t painful. I went to the GP and she couldn’t really feel it but suggested it wasn’t worrying lymph nodes and “might be a cyst”. Ive been quite anxious about it ever since as I’m not great with not having a certain answer, but am trying to reassure myself if it was worrying she’d have known.

A few weeks later it’s bigger, more prominent, I can see it now and it is still very mobile and painless. My breasts are becoming more engorged as I become more pregnant so I’m wondering if it’s just a milk duct or something?

I just wondered if anyone has had anything similar in pregnancy. Most of what I’ve read suggests that I’d it’s breast/milk tissue it would be in both armpits.

I’d feel like a bit of an idiot going back for another opinion as I’ve been a few times lately and I think she’s got me down as a bit of a hypochondriac

I had this in my recent pregnancy I got a scan after I had the baby and it was confirmed axillary breast tissue. It might get mastitis as mine filled with milk that got trapped so keep an eye on it!

Mine was first diagnosed as fatty tissues when I was in my early 20s a lipoma. When I started breastfeeding it bloody leaked milk and I realised what I thought was a mole was another nipple! My health visitor said she has seen it before, but not other with my ethnicity (white). Freaked me out and I still notice a second boob under my armpit in vests etc.

Maybe mine is a unique case. I tend to have odd things happened to my body.

I'm not a freak @DeadSouth has had it too.

Thanks both, that’s reassuring (although not the sound of a third boob! )

It’s a very obvious pea/marble lump, I think I expected auxiliary breast tissue to be more of an extension of the breast if that makes sense.

Baby will be here in a few weeks so I’ll try and hang on to see what happens when I hopefully start breastfeeding.

@Clarkey86 no mines totally started like a marble too, it was just that the breast tissue contained a milk duct, so when it filled with milk and I was breastfeeding the lump turned into a sore armpit tit 🙈

I had a lump the size and shape of an egg in one armpit when my milk arrived about 2 days after dd was born. It was huge and tender, midwife said it's very common (blocked duct I think she said) and will go down with massage. It did and has been fine ever since.

It’s definitely got more prominent the last few days as my boobs have grown so I’m hoping it’s just the breast tissue thing. Still can’t stop my brain going to the worst case scenario though!!

@clarkey86 how are you? Did you get any answers? I'm in the early stages of pregnancy with an armpit lump and the anxiety is scaring me senseless! I hope you are feeling much better and looking at your dates you have a lovely new baby to enjoy!

@Allanxiousarentwe Hi! So I never got a definite diagnosis BUT I squeezed it (hard…) in late pregnancy and it leaked colostrum! Now if I squeeze it it leaks milk….so it’s definitely some kind of milk duct. I can’t massage it out so I don’t think it has anywhere to drain?

The other side swelled up early on too but I could sort've massage that downwards and it went down when I fed baby.

I hope that puts your mind at rest a bit but definitely get a medical opinion to rule out anything sinister. My lump was about pea sized and quite mobile.