Mother is shocked by pink breast milk and goes viral: how does it get that color?

Don’t panic: usually the cause is quite harmless.

pink breast milk

In the category ‘you just need to know’: breast milk can have different colors. The American Jo – like many of her followers – had no idea. “No one ever told me that,” she says in a TikTok video that has now been viewed nearly 15 million times. In the video, she holds up two bags of expressed milk: one cream, the other pale pink. ‘Why is the milk pink? It’s blood. Babies can just drink it, so you can decide for yourself whether or not you do that,” says Jo.

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What’s the deal?

There are several reasons for pink or pink breast milk. For example, if you’ve been eating beets, a vegetable with a lot of dyes, your milk may turn pink. But it can indeed be a bit of blood, as Jo explains in the video. Causes are often a bleeding capillary in the milk duct or damaged nipples due to breastfeeding. There may also be mastitis, an inflammation of the breast. But then you also have other symptoms, such as a red or sore breast and flu symptoms. In that case – and also if you are in doubt about the cause – it is good to contact your doctor.

Source: BuzzFeed