In the efforts of safety regarding adult breastfeeding I have been considering the experiences or thoughts others have had related to the infection or transmission of STIs from breastfeeding. Specifically HSV1/2. Not much legitimate medical information seems to be available however after some searching I have found a medical journal(?) Related to this topic.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3327394/

I am not a medical professional so there is quite a lot of data here that I don't understand but here are two excerpts I found interesting.

"One uncommon site of HSV infection of the skin is the breast. Reports of herpetic breast infections are predominately cases of transmission from a systemically HSV-infected neonate to the mother during breast-feeding. A comprehensive review of the English literature identified only six reports suggesting HSV breast lesions acquired by means other than through an infected infant. Three of these reports do not specify how the breast became infected with HSV, but the virus was either culture-proven or infected a previously healthy infant during breast-feeding (4–6). In one case, the virus was culture-proven and was presumably acquired by autoinoculation from an oral lesion (5). Only one report suggests transmission of HSV to the breast from a male sexual partner with recurrent oral HSV lesions (7). We present a second case of symptomatic herpetic mastitis acquired possibly from sexual contact in a 46-year-old woman.."

"Infection of the breast by HSV is uncommon. Only 2% of all extragenital herpetic lesions have involved the breast (12). Furthermore, development of breast lesions as the first and sole manifestation of clinically apparent HSV infection without oral or genital herpes is uncommon (13). However, oral and genital HSV infections can be asymptomatic. There is little information in the literature regarding transmission of HSV to the breast except in cases associated with neonatal breast-feeding, and because further inquiry failed to reveal the source of the herpes virus in this patient we are left to speculate as to the means of transmission.

To me, this interprets as HSV1/2 infection of the breast and transmission while uncommon is possible within a margin of 2% and there is little information or research available on this topic. As someone who takes safety regarding transmission of.. well anything, very seriously. this information does come somewhat as a surprise considering it is not exclusively sexually/orally transmitted risk in this case but a potential risk to people who participate in ABF. This may come as a surprise to others. It certainly did to me.

I am curious as to what the ABF community thinks of this. What measures do you take to ensure safety with your partners if no risk is apparent or disclosed? What are the measures you take to safeguard yourself from contracting or transmitting STIs during breastfeeding? Is this a subject that our community should pay more attention to?

TL;DR Can you contract or transmit STIs via breastfeeding? Research points to yes with chance of 2%(but that percentage may be inaccurate) is the ABF community aware of these risks? What are they doing about it?

Just some food for thought.

Edited for typo