A question for anaesthetists!

[hereismydog]

I know there are a few of you on the boards so hoping one of you sees this I have asked at both of my pre-assessment appointments and couldn’t get a clear answer, and I probably won’t see an anaesthetist until the morning of my surgery, by which time it’ll be too late!

I’m having a hemithyroidectomy at the end of Jan, by which time my baby will be 5 weeks old. He is EBF and I want to continue with this unless I have no choice but to supplement with formula. My question is whether my milk will be safe for him to have after general anaesthetic, or if I will need to pump and dump for a certain amount of time. I’m expressing and freezing as much as I can in advance for him to have while I am in theatre and for the night I will have to spend in hospital, but I don’t know how long I should wait before I can feed him, or if the milk I will need to express after my surgery will be okay to keep. Any advice would be appreciated please!

Ask the breast feeding network. It’s run by a pharamist who had conducted research into how much of which medications pass into breast milk.

www.breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk/

I'm not an anaesthesiologist but it's absolutely fine. You shouldn't cosleep afterwards though.

www.unicef.org.uk/babyfriendly/baby-friendly-resources/breastfeeding-resources/anaesthesia-and-sedation/

Just remembered I had to have a GA after having DD2 and I was actively encouraged to breast feed as soon as I returned to the ward. The head midwife rang recovery and asked if they could bring baby to me in recovery to feed but the recovery nurses said I was still too out of it.

I'm no expert but what people have said so far makes sense, I would think that once the anaesthetic is either reversed and/or enough out of your system that you're fully awake, then I don't think it should be a worry about it passing through the milk. Most general anaesthetic medications are quite short acting once they've stopped being given.

I was about to say something similar - I had a full GA to get a PPH under control, and was able to feed dd2 (under supervision!) as soon as I was able to hold her.

Congratulations on your new baby!

I had a GA when my baby was five weeks old. It was day surgery and I was home that night and breastfed him. However I was out for the count for a few hours on Monday afternoon - a landline phone rang next to my head and I had no idea. So make sure you have some family around to look after you both in the days afterwards.

I was born by C-section and my mum was under GA. She breastfed me as soon as she woke up.

there isn't a reason from a purely anaesthetic drugs point of view why you couldn't breast feed so long as you tell them that's you're plan so they can avoid some meds (women feed neonates after GA sections with no problems). However, from a logistic point of view it's worth being aware it may not work out - for starters, it might be pretty uncomfortable having just had neck surgery (am assuming there's a degree of urgency for the surgery if the operation is being done so close to having just delivered, so is it a surgically more complex procedure?). You do also need a plan for how you'll feed the baby if there are any surgical complications that need you to stay in longer too.