A mum has revealed how her breast milk turned into ‘strawberry milk’ after pumping for her baby.

In fact, Hayley Wombles’ breast milk turned bright red, but she didn’t panic, instead filming an educational TikTok so other mums wouldn’t be shocked if it happened to them.

“Am I excited to see this?,” Hayley said. “Heck no! Is it totally normal? Yes. Is it super scary to see at first? Ah, yeah!”

Watch on TikTok

The nurse, based in the US, initially put up a video showing how she uses the Willow Wearable Breast Pump, but when she went to remove the device, she noticed one was filled with red milk.

“So there’s actually several things that ca cause this,” she explained. “They call it ‘strawberry milk’. My problem here was, I think my nips are dry and cracked, and I might not have had my pump on correctly. So it caused them to bleed. It didn’t hurt at all, I didn’t feel a thing. I just pumped as normal and didn’t notice until I took it off.”

The footage was met with shock from lots of mums who couldn’t believe milk of that colour could come from a breast.

“I never seen bleeding like that. Have you been to the Doctor?” ask one mum.

“Uuummmm… me not thinking that was ALL blood. I never knew that and if that would’ve happened to me I would’ve FREAKED!!!” wrote Yolanda Chapman.

Watch on TikTok

Hayley explained that while the milk may look frightening, it’s actually perfectly ok to give to baby.

“It is still safe for baby to drink, however I probably won’t be giving it to her. Because if you think, if you’ve ever had a cut in your mouth and tasted it, it’s gonna taste horrible. So it’s just my own personal choice to dump it.”

Why causes pink breast milk?

While it looks pretty horrifying, red or pink breast milk shouldn’t cause panic. As Hayley mentioned, there are a few reasons this happens.

According to La Leche League International breast milk comes in a whole range of colours, from white to yellow, clear and even blue. Things like the foods you eat and what you drink can change the colour of your milk.

But pink breast milk usually means that there’s blood in the milk. Here are some of the reasons:

• Cracked nipples: This is super common, but painful so make sure you take steps to help your nipples heal.
• Mastitis: An infection of the breast
• Papillomas: Growths in the milk ducts that may cause blood to enter your milk.
• Breast Cancer: This is rarely the case, but some breast cancer can cause blood to leak from your nipples.

If you’re concerned, you should have a chat to your doctor or lactation consultant if you find you’re pumping pink breast milk.