So my last poll was about caffeine consumption among BFers on MN - who here takes cocodamol? I know the advice is to stick to paracetamol or ibuprofen when BFing but that stuff doesn't even touch the sides for me, for example, when DS kindly gave me his cold recently or right now when I have a headache that feels like my right eyeball is about to pop out onto the floor (probably also DS-related - sleep deprivation dontcha know?) I do my best to limit them - I think I've had two 8/500 cocodamols, i.e. the over the counter variety, on 3 occasions since DS was born 5 months ago. I've tried combining one cocodamol with one paracetamol - may as well have not taken either for all the good it did. Am I a bad mother who just needs to suck it up more for the sake of my child or do others treat themselves to some effective pain relief on occasion also?
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You are not a bad mother at all 
in fact you are doing something fantastic for your baby by breast feeding, I think I'm right in saying that some studies have shown that bfing is still better for babies even when the mum has some really heavy duty drugs in their system. Speaking of which...
I have breastfed while on far higher dosages of codeine than you are taking with no problems at all. I was also on other painkillers such as oramorph and so I have spoken to several doctors/midwives and other health professions who have specialist knowledge of breast feeding and medications, and they all told me that codeine was not a problem at all
Of course it is always sensible to stick to as little as you need, and if you begin taking a lot regularly then sometimes you need to wean off slowly. But by using it as you are I don't think there would be a problem at all
Of course I am not qualified or an expert but as I said I have a bit of experience of this and have breastfed six children on various medications so I have spent a lot of time researching what is safe or not
Hope you feel better soon
I had a cs and took much stronger cocodamol and oromorph when bfing, and dd was fine.
Then later in when I got my periods back and I was still bfing I also took cocodamol sometimes, as I have endometriosis and frankly the pain is too much to bear without them. They really are not harmful at all, I was even told I could take then in early pg by my mw because I had really bad abdo pain in early pg too, probably related to scar tissue from my endo.
Please don't beat yourself up, you are doing a great job by bfing, don't make a martyr of yourself by going through unecessary pain. If you are worried speak to your gp, but I'm sure he'll say it is fine to have the occasional one. The only worry is baby getting dependent, but that only happen in people who have to take very strong ones very frequently e.g someone with a chronic very painful condition. And would probably only really happen in pg itself, not bfing. The ocaasional OTC dose really won't hurt.
An analogy is, the odd glass of wine won't hurt, but if you were getting blind drunk every day that would be a little different! 
MayTheOdds Breast fed six children...! I will defer to your expertise in all things from now on!
HappyPills I had a CS with morphine to follow as well so I figure I've had stronger when DS was a lot more fragile than he is now, but your reassurance is very welcome 
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