booze and breast

[root]

anyone know the definitive answer to how many units of alcohol it is safe to drink per day, whilst breast feeding?

[piffle]

I was told that only none is safe but a modest intake one or two glasses of wine lets say on a weekly basis might not be too bad. personally I went the old wives tale and supped Guinness...
Although white wine can give baby the squits and gas so be warned!

[root]

what i can't understand is that there doesn't seem to be any sensible research on this subject. i mean surely it's easy enough to give some lactating mothers some booze and test their milk afterwards?

[aloha]

Tiktok has posted extensively on this recently. If you do a search you will find exactly when there is no alcohol left in your breastmilk if that is important to you.

[aloha]

And the real issue is not - "is there alcohol in your breastmilk?", which has been the subject of studies anyway btw - but 'does that alcohol do any harm and if so, at what level?" and the results of those studies are inconclusive - most do not show harm.

[highlander]

goody - reaches for bottle of wine.....

[dinny]

Interesting re white wine. Drunk quite a bit of it over the last few days {grin] (normally drink red) and ds been twitchy and farty and unsettled....

[JulieF]

The alcohol goes into your milk very quickly and leaves roughly at the same rate as it is in your blood. One unit per hour.

[dinny]

Julie, I'd read that it takes quite a while to reach your milk, not like how it would reach the baby when pg....?

[tiktok]

root - there is a ton of stuff on mumsnet about this, and piffle, I have never heard of white wine doing this, so I would be sceptical, sorry!

Dinny, it doesn't take that long to reach the breastmilk, but it leaves it fairly quickly. Anyway, it's all on mumsnet

[collision]

Oooh Tiktok, seeing as you are around, could you look at the thread which I resurrected on freezing breastmilk and tell me what you think?

[dinny]

Thanks, Tiktok. Anyway, ds has no complaints (except maybe when drank white instead of red)

[root]

ah ha, i thought this might have come up before. will find the archives.

[PlainFlum]

There isn't one. Thats the answer. A little probably won't do a lot of harm.

Having none will probably do no harm, but babies like to live in nice chilled out families not hygience and health zones.

All things in moderation.

A little bit of what you fancy.

The old adages are the best.

[root]

just read some old threads on this. nice to know most mumsnetters are a chilled out bunch. the advice you get on this (and drinking whilst pregnant) from health professionals is soooo contradictory. i went to a BF workshop run by King's College Hospital and they said no more than two units a day whilst BFing. they said if you drank more you should express, freeze and label milk 'ABM' (alcoholic breast milk!). you were then meant to dilute 1 to 1 with 'clean' breast milk before feeding to baby. what a faff!!

my NCT adviser , on the other hand, said you could drink 6 units a night!! well, i'd be incapable of standing after that, let alone breastfeeding!

[JulieF]

I can't beleive that advice root, you are right, what a faff.

There is no need to pump and dump as the alcohol leaves your milk atthe rate of roughly one unit per hour. The only reason you may need to pump and dump is if you get sozzled, miss a feed and get engorged, you'd do it for comfort.

I am often to be seen with a baby feeding in one arm and a glass of wine in the other hand!!

[root]

ha ha! yes, me too and no ill affects yet noted in baby.

[root]

...that should be 'effects' - i'm not drinking, honest!