Extended Breastfeeding and medicines

[pestov]

DD is 20 months and just has a single feed from me at bedtime. I’ve religiously avoided hay fever medication and cough & cold remedies since I was first pregnant, although I do now feed her occasionally after a couple of glasses of wine.

Any ideas if I still need to do this? Or am I doomed to have a snotty nose for YEARS between pregnancies and breastfeeding

[JohnLapsleyParlabane]

Oh goodness. I take all sorts of OTC cold remedies and DD is still on multiple feeds per day (2yo). It hadn't occurred to me that I still shouldn't after she turned 1.

[MyYoniFromHull]

www.breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk/drugs-factsheets/

Loads of common medicines in breastfeeding are on these leaflets, there's definitely some antihistamines that are fine.

[Ktown]

I breastfed for around 27 months and avoided everything.
On the odd ocassion I did I would pump and dump and check the half life of the medicine.
I work for a pharma company and you cannot do good research on breastfeeding infants for obvious reasons. I don't think it is a good idea due to the lack of research and knowledge.

[cheeriosatdawn]

I so feel your pain. I took any medication that my baby was able to take--so, basically, paracetamol and Neurofen.

Also discovered the wonders of anaesthetic throat spray and decongestant nasal spray as the amounts absorbed are pretty negligible--but the results nothing short of miraculous (to someone who hadn't taken anything for almost two years).

Now back to taking "real" medicine and frankly find that they're not much better than the above. Hang in there.

[pestov]

Those leaflets are great! So the reason you can’t have decongestants like lemsip is they reduce milk supply, and it’s more pronounced if baby is older than 60 weeks. Given I’m constantly worried about supply as we often have to go 48 hours between feeds due to my work schedule I’ll keep avoiding.