can these painkillers affect my baby?

[VigourMortis]

I had a tooth out the other day leaving a large and rather painful gap. I went to the pharmacy and she gave me cocodamol, 500mg, two every six hours and Ibuprufen 400mg, one every eight hours. I told her I was exclusively bfing DS who is nearly 5 months.

I put DS to bed last night at about half nine and he slept through till 9am this morning. He's never slept through before (I would usually feed him at about 4am) and although feeling strong and mighty after my first uninterrupted nights sleep in a long time, I'm worried it could be because of my tablets.

He can take a bottle of formula or have some porridge but will hold out for breast as long as possible.

Does anybody have any advice?

[alypaly]

codeine passes through to the breast milk and as it is an opiate derivative it is likely to have mad LO sleepy. I have attached an artical produced by Bolton NHS which is a bit scary and advises not to take for more than 2-3 days max. Dont want to worry you but i would take care

[VigourMortis]

Thanks. I do think the codeine affected him - I didn't take any more, so he only had it for 24 hours. Alypaly I read up on the new info on codeine and breastfeeding - I wonder if I metabolise it into morphine? EIther way I shall be avoiding it until I give up breastfeeding. At least DS is five months and on the 96th percentile, so hopefully his organism will have better able to support it than the newborns who it is suspected suffered from it. Scary though.

I can say that DS is now waking at 4 and 7 again like a trooper!

[weegiemum]

You have mentioned 500mg - that is the paracetamol content, which doesn't cause drowsiness. What is the coedine dose? Are you taking 8/500 or 30/500?

I assume you are taking 2 (normal dose) which means you are having either 16 or 60 mg of coedine - and if you are on the higher dose it could very well be making baby sleepy.

For tooth pain you are actually much better off with an anti-inflammatory type medication such as ibuprofen (nurofen etc). You can take up to 2.4 mg a day (4 x 600mg) and it has no sedative effects on a baby.

[VigourMortis]

Hi Weegie, yes it was 8/500 and took 2 every six hours, straight after feeding, thinking it would have had time to metabolize before I fed again.

I didn't take any more after that night - although DS was bright and cheery and feeding well, it was just the long sleep that alerted me.

The extraction is still hurting, I've just been back to the dentist, but I'm only taking 1 ibuprufen 400mg when necessary.

Many thanks

[alypaly]

sorry it didnt attachwww.bolton.nhs.uk/Library/services/med_manage/Codeine.doc