Drinking Alcohol And Breastfeeding

Drinking small amounts of alcohol occasionally wont affect the breastfed baby.

Drinking alcohol and breastfeeding. Alcohols effect on breastfeeding Breastfeeding is controlled by the two pituitary hormones prolactin and oxytocin 24. Current research says that occasional use of alcohol 1-2 drinks does not appear to be harmful to the nursing baby. Peak levels in the milk appear after 30-90 minutes but this does not mean that social drinking of small amounts of alcohol mean that you cannot breastfeed.

Avoid breastfeeding during and for 2 3 hours after drinking alcohol. Pumping and dumping drinking a lot of water resting or drinking coffee will not speed up the rate of the elimination of alcohol from your body. Pumping your breast milk and then dumping it instead of giving it to your baby does not get the alcohol out of the milk any faster.

However planning ahead can allow you to express some milk for your baby ahead of time. Prolactin stimulates the production of breast milk and oxytocin causes contraction of the smooth muscle cells surrounding the mammary tissue thus causing ejection of the milk stored in the breast 24. You do not have to pump and dump after drinking alcohol when youre breastfeeding except for comfort.

As alcohol leaves the bloodstream it leaves the breastmilk. Drinking an excessive amount of alcohol while breastfeeding can be dangerous for your child. If you choose to drink avoid breast-feeding until alcohol has completely cleared your breast milk.

The impact of drinking alcohol while you are a breastfeeding mother Almost anything you eat or drink including alcohol passes to your breast milk. Your baby can have this milk if you miss a feed while drinking or while you are waiting for the amount of alcohol in your milk to drop. The World Health Organization recommends avoiding alcohol completely while breastfeeding but even so 12-83 of breastfeeding women report consuming alcohol according to an article published in the journal Pediatrics.

Alcohol is not trapped in breastmilk. Also while folklore says that drinking alcohol improves milk production studies show that alcohol actually decreases milk production and that the presence of alcohol in breast milk causes babies to drink about 20 less breast milk. Heavy drinkers should wait longer.