Anesthesia and Breastfeeding advice

[BanoffeePi]

Hello mummies, I needed some advice. I need to have my wisdom teeth extracted. I have been given the option of local anesthesia and remove only one tooth at a time or general anesthesia and remove 3 in one go. If I go for GA I’d be admitted for half a day from 9-6.

My question is, how would these types of anesthesia affect my breastmilk? Would it still be safe to feed? Also my DS (15mo) has never been bottle fed so I don’t know if it’s something I could introduce now? He needs to feed to sleep/nap otherwise is completely inconsolable. How can I go about this? Any advice welcome :) Thank you 💕

Loads of info here: www.breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk/drugs-factsheets/

Local doesn’t affect milk at all.

Small amounts of GA meds will be excreted into the milk, but in negligible quantities. Current advice with feeding and GA is that you are safe to feed as soon as you are awake enough to hold the baby without dropping them. It can change the taste slightly so they might be more fussy than usual. However at 15mo they should be getting nutrition from solids too, so slightly less milk intake shouldn’t be a problem.

LA you’ll be able to drive / look after DC etc immediately afterwards. GA you need someone with you for 24h to look after dc and you.

LA is one at a time so you have three lots of post extraction pain to go through, GA you get it all over with in one go.

Thank you @doricgirl and @HicDraconis , how is general administered?

I believe a small amount will be in your milk after a GA, certainly not enough to worry about.
Mums are encouraged to BF newborns after they have a GA c section so I wouldn't be at all concerned at 15 months.
Goodluck

If you have a GA you will almost certainly be put to slerp with an injection and then kept aslerp either by inhaled anaesthetic gases or by an infusion of the same drug used to put you to sleep. You would need to ask your anaesthetist for details though.
Another consideration would be waiting time. I appreciate you may not be in the UK, given you haven't used the British spelling of anaesthesia, but if you are, and are being treated on the NHS, you probably need to be aware that the waiting time for routine dental work under GA is long in most places. In the Trust where I work, I can almost guarantee that you could go back to the dentist for 3 separate procedures before you got to the top of the waiting list.
You also need to think more about the after effects of the dental work than the anaesthesia in my experience. It can be quite sore afterwards with a fair bit of swelling so you need to consider whether you prefer 3 lots of lesser pain or one lot that will be worse. I had all mine done ay once and the worst part was that I couldn't eat properly for a couple of weeks afterwards as both sides of my mouth were very swollen and painful. With hindsight I might have preferred one side done at a time so that I could chew on one side of my mouth.
There's lots to think about - I hope it goes well, whatever you decide.

Sleep...not slerp!

GA is administered through a drip initially (cannula in your hand or arm). Once you’re asleep they put something into the back of your throat to keep your airway open - I use a tube in through the nose to your airway, sometimes it just goes in through your mouth over the back of your tongue. You breathe a mix of oxygen and air, and either an anaesthetic gas in the breathing circuit or continual infusion of anaesthetic medicine in through your drip keeps you asleep.