Can you drink alcohol and breastfeed? Dr Gill #drgill #breastfeeding

is it safe to drink alcohol whilst breastfeeding this is actually a very common door handle question at this time of year I.E you've done your consultation the person's just about to leave hand on the door handle and oh by the way one more thing doctor and it's very common around the Christmas period and similar celebrations to say can I breastfeed and drink alcohol well it's important to note that alcohol is a drug and thus can potentially affect things but there are definitely SA ways to drink and breastfeed now let me dispel one thing right from the get-go the old concept of drinking and then pumping and dumping doesn't actually have any effect here it certainly doesn't change how alcohol gets into the breast milk in terms of alcohol getting into the breast milk it's kind of the same as alcohol getting into your blood so your Peak alcohol levels in your blood about 30 to 60 minutes after you drunk alcohol but if you've been eating food as well maybe 6 to 90 minutes peaking in the blood the same Peak alcohol content will also occur in the breast milk in that same time frame so let's flip it around for every one unit of alcohol you drink how long is it going to take for there to be no alcohol in the breast milk about 2 to three hours but for every additional unit of alcohol you drink you multiply that up so if you drunk two units of alcohol that's going to be 4 to six for your body to completely clear it now why does this question matter to patients because they're obviously always worried about harming their babies and let's be honest a small amount of alcohol isn't going to cause harm on one occasion if it's consumed by the breast milk Etc however recurrent alcohol exposure to babies will affect harm but there's one thing that might give all new parents cause to think about whether or not they want to consum alcohol and breastfeed alcohol affects your sleep but it also will affect the baby's sleep so they're more likely to wake during the night after you have had alcohol and breastfed within that two to three hour window so can we get around it well yes quite simply by having our um breastfeeding before we have our first drink of alcohol and then making sure our next feed is at least two to three hours later that way you should be able to enjoy your alcohol and the baby should be able to enjoy the breast milk both before and afterwards without affecting that precious sleep both for you and them take care and enjoy enjoy your alcohol but responsibly cheer you I'll see you the next one bye