Expert: Tina - 5/25/2007

Question
Last Fall a delightful female cat came to our house. She was sick and we got her to a vet and we kept her. She is very loving, loves our cats, the Pom and her are inseperable. She came in season early this year. The vet had a waiting list, so we stuck her in the bathroom (mobile home)with food, water, litter and frequent visits. She was out of heat in one week but went right back into it for another week. This lasted for several weeks. When I finally got an appt for her spaying she had been out of heat for two weeks and I assume she was by that time was 2 weeks pregnant BECAUSE I was tired of ripped out screens and destruction, but I figured maybe the vet would be removing some tiny embryos, No problem. She could be an Aby. She is an outside kitty. The vet spayed her and removed 4 almost full term babies in a spay/abortion. That in itself killed me to have her with almost viable kittens.
Now to make a long story short and quit blabbing, one month later she is lactating slightly. Is that a problem?
Her name is Geisha.


Answer
HI trish,

I am sorry to hear that your cat wasn't spayed in time to prevent her pregnancy in the first place, but she's lucky to have a home and there are not enough homes for all the kittens. Once she was under anesthetic, the kittens were likely brain damaged from the drugs anyway so the vet would have had to go ahead and abort them - you didn't know how far along she was.

However I think you need to contact your vet for a checkup, discharge from the nipples in a spayed cat could indicate an infection. Mammary gland infections are extremely painful. It may have developed if she had milk and then never gave birth to the kittens, so her glands were engorged but never drained by kittens nursing.