Breastfeeding Baby - What Medications are Safe to Take While Breastfeeding

What Medications are Safe to Use While Breastfeeding

Many woman want to know what they should avoid taking when they are nursing. Surprisingly there are many medications that are considered to be safe to use while breastfeeding. However this does not mean that the medications will not affect your baby.

Often after an emergency c-section a mother is given her pain medication through an IV, when it comes time to breastfeed her newborn the baby may only suckle a moment and then drift off to sleep. It isn't that the baby is awfully tired from the birth process, perhaps it is but unlikely, it is that the medications that the mother is receiving has entered her milk and affected the baby.

When a drug is classified as safe to take while nursing this does not mean that it will not affect the baby who is breastfeeding or the milk supply of the mother. The APP published a series of tables that showed the effects of certain medications to milk supply and to babies, if you are wondering the specific effects, both mild and severe, you can read such published work of the APP on their website - The Transfer of Drugs and Other Chemicals Into Human Milk.

Ideally the only form of medication that you will want to be taking while you are nursing is the prenatal vitamins that you have been taking since pregnancy, however in the event that you are prescribed a certain medication it is extremely important to find out from the doctor who is prescribing the medication and your pharmacist what effects the drug will have on breastfeeding. It is always a good idea to get a second opinion on the matter from a lactation consultant as well.

In addition to any medications that you have a prescription for it is crucial to find out the affects of the over the counter drugs that you take or have on hand to take. Everything from fever reducing, allergy medicine to cold medicine and relief from ache muscles and head aches that you have in your home and may be taken by you needs to be safe for your baby, more importantly hopefully is something that has very mild effects on your milk and baby so as not to cause problems, such as low milk supply, poor appetite, diarrhea and even fevers and excessive drowsiness.

Although there are many common medications that are approved by the APP for nursing mothers and babies, and are deemed to be "safe" it is important to understand all of the affects that the medication will have on your baby directly and how the medication will affect your milk supply, such as decreasing it. If you are temporally taking a medication, and are without any alternatives, pumping and dumping, pumping milk and throwing it out to clean your system, can be used to clear your milk of anything harmful of your baby. When doing this though make sure that you are able to feed your baby, perhaps pump more milk a head of time so they have something to eat while you are getting the medication out of your body and milk.