Milk Fistula Support

Kia ora! Has anyone experienced a milk fistula while breast feeding? I’ve had one form after getting a biopsy on a lump under one of my nipples. I have had very little understanding from the doctors I’ve seen unfortunately. I have a 6 week old and do not consider stopping breast feeding as an option (unless 1000% necessary). Any support/experience people can offer with the heading of their own fistulas?

Thanks for any help in advance!

UPDATE: Just in case this helps anyone on the internet as i personally found so little about this condition that was helpful.

I received a core biopsy to my left breast for a lump that was to the right of my nipple. 24 hours after the procedure bloody milk started streaming from the entry site from the biopsy. All milk from my left side had lots of blood in it.

PRO TIP: even though it’s said that it’s fine for your baby to drink bloody milk, mine was almost more blood than milk and did not want to feed it to her. I expressed the milk, and refrigerated it in a jar. After two - three hours the blood would sink to the bottom and separate from the milk. I was able to then pour most of the milk blood free to then feed to my baby.

The blood stopped being in my milk after 3 days.

After going through 60 breast pads of spilt milk from the site, finally after 10 days the wound healed. It was very sudden as it felt even hours before there was no change in how much was leaking.

I now have an over supply due to the amount that I was losing from the breast every day but I’m sure my body will readjust again.

If this happens to you try the following:

  1. Make sure your breast is mostly free of milk before the biopsy (nobody told me to do this)
  2. Continue feeding as normal as possible after
  3. However do try and keep that side with as little milk as possible without over pumping/over feeding if you can.
  4. If a fistula forms try and keep it as clean and dry as possible (very challenging). I personally continuously changed out breast pads and was able to keep it clean and uninfected.
  5. You can stop/slow the milk flowing to the fistula by laying your finger flat along the track from the nipple to the fistula hole if useful.
  6. GET MEDICAL HELP ASAP IF YOU BELIEVE ITS INFECTED OR YOU DEVELOP A FEVER/SORE ARMPITS ETC. (signs of mastitis/blocked duct)

I really hope this is useful to someone, I was not warned or informed of any of this before the procedure.

Happy to say everything has healed now after a lot of stress but thankfully minimal impact to my baby.