Boozy brunch and breastfeeding

[Benandjerrysbonnoffeepie]

In a few weeks time I’m going for a boozy brunch, it’s my first time leaving baby. I ebf although he will take a bottle of expressed milk.

With the brunch you can get four cocktails (I’m not planning on having all four as tempting as it is). However how long would I need to wait before breastfeeding again if I had all four? I’m just making sure there is more than enough milk for baby but think he might get upset if I come home and he can’t bf!

(I know this should bd simple maths but I can’t quite seem to do it!)

At least 12 hours

Based on what?

OP as a general rule of thumb if you are sober enough to look after your baby it's OK to BF. You don't need to wait or pump and dump.

You don’t need to wait at all, if you can hold the baby you can feed the baby. The amount of alcohol that passes into breastmilk is negligible (less that what is in teething liquid!)

www.nhs.uk/conditions/baby/breastfeeding-and-bottle-feeding/breastfeeding-and-lifestyle/alcohol/

Don't worry about it, enjoy your drink and feed as normal. As a pp said, the panic over drinking and breastfeeding is rooted in whether you can care for the baby, not about negligible amounts in milk. You'd have to be comatose for any to get in to your milk. Read this by Dr Jack Newman and enjoy your brunch: www.facebook.com/DrJackNewman/posts/alcohol-and-breastfeeding-happy-holidays-all-from-our-breastfeeding-clinic-in-to/422431411241244/

If you're safe to hold baby, you're safe to feed baby. You don't need to wait.

Sorry but this is really dangerous advice. It's completely against current nhs guidelines and would risk exposing a tiny baby to a significant amount of alcohol. And let's not lose sight of the fact that one of the things that makes you feel safe, even when you're really not, is drinking 4 bloody cocktails!

Which guidlines is it "completely against"? NHS advice is just that you could choose to wait 2 hours after a drink. Don't fear monger without actually reading the advice and understanding the science.
Nobody should be in sole charge of a tiny baby after 4 cocktails, but it's not the breasmilk that makes that dangerous. But I don't think that's what OP is intending, so irrelevant.

I remember waiting 2 hours after every drink.

Pump & dump. Breast milk will give the baby more alcohol than if you drank while pregnant.

No it doesn’t 😂 as someone who actually knows what they’re talking about (have done actual alcohol testing on bm as part of a study) please don’t listen to people who are plucking random facts out of the air to scare you.

I would go by the NHS guidelines and it says to wait two hours after a drink.

everyone on here thinks they are a medical expert so just go with the proper advice. Obviously the more you drink the more your alcohol levels increase so I don’t know if the time then increases- NHS website doesn’t specify but there might be some breastfeeding groups online who can clarify :)

Are you the same boring troll who comes on to every thread to be antagonistic or are you really this uninformed?

Not much alcohol passes into breastmilk and there's definitely no need to "pump and dump" as alcohol leaves the breastmilk again over time. In my opinion, if I had one cocktail then I would probably breastfeed when I got home, if the baby was hungry. If I had four cocktails then I would probably give at least another bottle of expressed milk just in case. Go by how you feel though as some cocktails can be pretty high in alcohol.

You don't need to wait. I never did

You don't need to, it's all bollocks. Do your own research.
Let your hair down & have a great time, you deserve it.

NHS website says

An occasional drink is unlikely to harm your baby especially if you wait at least 2 hours after having a drink before feeding..

To keep health risks from alcohol to a low level, it's safest not to drink more than 14 units a week on a regular basis.

Your baby will be fine. Especially as a one off

How old is your baby?

Mine was 2 last Christmas and I asked the midwife if I had a few drinks on Christmas Day what would happen and she told me it would be like dropping a shot of alcohol into a swimming pool and not to worry

Sorry but this is really dangerous advice. It's completely against current nhs guidelines and would risk exposing a tiny baby to a significant amount of alcohol

A significant amount? No it isn't.

Breast milk has broadly the same alcohol content as your blood. So if your blood alcohol was 0.08% (the drink driving limit in England), your breast milk would be 0.08% alcohol. That's tiny. You're acting like she'd be directly giving 12% alcohol wine to the baby.

A blood alcohol level of 0.42% can be lethal. And you'd still have breast milk that was only 0.42% alcohol. And I think we can reasonably assume OP will be nowhere near that.

Load of rubbish. Assume you are having the 4 cocktails over a couple of hours, and eating, you'll be fine to feed when you get home, also assuming you'll have some travel time.

I wouldn't wait. I never limited alcohol when breastfeeding - I mean, anymore than I would simply because I had a small baby and I was generally tired anyway. As long as you don't think you'll fall asleep/pass out drunk while feeding baby, you can have all four and feed whenever you need to, in theory.

This is completely wrong.

How could that possibly be true. Think about it how a foetus gets its nutrition.

Enjoy your brunch!!! How exciting. Ignore the uninformed and have a great time! Which cocktails are on offer?! Have you sorted your outfit?

Say the cocktails had 3 25ml shots each (though they probably wouldn’t, I was going worst, or best 🤣, case scenario), that is roughly 3 units each, you have to allow roughly an hour for each unit until it is out of your system, plus an hour on top. So that would equal 13 hours.

No you don't.