Breastfeeding and Alcohol

photo credit: russelljsmith

You’ve just went through 9 months of drinking not a single sip of alcohol and all you want is to indulge yourself in a nice glass of wine with your pasta, or a yummy margarita from your favorite Mexican restaurant.

Believe me; I know how you feel and so do millions of other new moms out there. One of the things I looked forward to most once I gave birth was a nice pint of Guinness! (Maybe it was the iron I craved? Not sure, but a lot of European women drink a little beer while nursing and swear it helps with milk supply. Who knows?)

Breastfeeding and alcohol is something many mothers are concerned about because just as the health of their baby kept them from drinking pregnant, those same concerns apply when breastfeeding. Breathe a sigh of relief though because you won’t have to abstain completely.

· If you drink, make sure that you have pumped before so you have expressed milk available because if you have more than two beers or small glasses of wine, you need to wait approximately three hours to breastfeed.

· You can safely breastfeed if you only drink one drink.

· Dumping expressed milk will not rid your body of alcohol and will only waste breast milk. It’s time that is important here. Try nursing your baby just before or while drinking the alcohol, so that by the time the next feeding rolls around, most of the alcohol will be out of your bloodstream.

· If you are really worried, you can buy strips to test the alcohol content of your milk, these will tell you if you have had too much to drink to safely nurse your baby.

Here is a quote from The Breastfeeding Answer Book, published by La Leche League:

“Alcohol passes freely into mother’s milk and has been found to peak about 30 to 60 minutes after consumption, 60 to 90 minutes when taken with food.

It takes a 120 pound woman about two to three hours to eliminate from her body the alcohol in one serving of beer or wine…the more alcohol that is consumed, the longer it takes for it to be eliminated. It takes up to 13 hours for a 120 pound woman to eliminate the alcohol from one high-alcohol drink.

The effects of alcohol on the breastfeeding baby are directly related to the amount the mother consumes. “

Tags: breastfeeding and diet