A few days after giving birth, a 29-year-old Austrian woman started secreting milk through her vulva. Explanations.
Red, swollen and painful breasts, fatigue… breastfeeding is rarely fun. However, few women will have had complications like those reported in the diary. Obstetrics & Gynecology. Doctors describe the extremely rare case of an Austrian woman who, a few days after giving birth, began to produce milk via her vulva.
Ectopic breast tissue
Five days after giving birth to her second child, where her genitals had to be stitched up, a woman goes to hospital with pain and swelling in her vulva. She “noticed swelling on both sides, left and right, from the labia majora to the labia minora (…) The patient reported that three days after delivery, her vulva was producing white milky secretions”, say the doctors .
After suspecting an abscess, they order an ultrasound and discover that their patient has ectopic breast tissue. Ectopic cells are cells or tissues that end up in parts of the body where they shouldn’t. In the case of the young Austrian, the latter therefore presented lactating breast tissue on the vulva. “Extrauterine breast tissue releases fluid milky white and causes severe pain in the right side,” the doctors said.
A phenomenon that affects 1 to 5% of women
Their patient recounts having already had a similar experience following her first childbirth, but the pain here was much worse. In fact, one of the stitches had caused galactostasis, or “stopping of the circulation of milk in the milk ducts or the producing acini”, explains the report. To treat this, doctors removed her stitches and prescribed antibiotics. Two weeks later, the symptoms and pains disappeared completely and the young woman was able to start breastfeeding normally again. In order to prevent her from developing cancer, the doctors also recommended that she have the ectopic breast tissue removed.
While this phenomenon is very rare, it is not unknown. According to the report’s authors, 1 to 5 percent of women are born with ectopic breast tissue, although it is most often found in the armpit and not on the vulva. Over time, as was the case with this patient, excretory ducts develop. They are discovered during pregnancy or if they cause cancer. It also happens that due to ectopic breast tissue, a nipple or halo is placed “in the wrong place”.
In 2014, a 27-year-old young woman made the headlines when a third nipple had appeared on her left side during her first pregnancy. Most often, the third breasts are present from birth, which allows doctors to remove them from an early age, most often for aesthetic reasons via surgical excision.
.
