to think the current NHS guidelines for alcohol and breastfeeding are batshit and not conducive to long term breastfeeding

[lemonadey]

I was at a wedding on Saturday, I took 6m old dd but me and dh decided he would be the one "on shift" and I would have a few drinks as its been a while (dd is a bottle refuser) over the course of the day I drank quite a few glasses of prosecco (I didn't count but by the end of the day it probably amounted to about a bottle) but obviously still bf dd at points and I got pretty fed up of the amount of people quite openly shocked at me breastfeeding and drinking. I do get it, the nhs guidelines are basically the same as if you're pregnant even though the way alcohol transfers to the baby is completely different and the amount of alcohol that enters your breastmilk is negligible.

I just feel it is another way for women to feel like their life is "on hold" while breastfeeding, my mum breastfed me and said she never gave a second thought to what she ate or drank and it was a really enjoyable experience for her, it was part of her life, she never expressed or "pumped and dumped".

I wish more women realised you can still have a social life that includes drinking whilst breastfeeding, the current guidelines are so ridiculously strict and just result in judging from other people and unnecessary guilt for mum.

So tell me, AIBU??

Drinking that much every day might

It won't. Lots of good info in the thread, you might try reading t.

penguin then as a scientist with so much experience, you will know how much studies can differ and change. How little consensus there is. How studies are flawed, or reach erroneous conclusions. Butter anyone?

We all know why the government can't assert a "safe" limit here and as a result, I believe people are put off breastfeeding.

I wish more women realised you can still have a social life that includes drinking whilst breastfeeding,

I have a pretty decent social life. I don't drink any alcohol. I wouldn't drink if I had an almost or exclusively breastfed child which at 6 months I'd expect you to have. Not worth it.

claud not worth what? An alcoholic baby?!

Ps you can wean at 4 months. It helps prevent allergies.

Thing is clandistino you might think it's pretty decent but for others it might not be. People are different (shock horror I know)

Penguin I like your posts.

I drink and bf and have indeed been very drunk and Bfd. The baby is protected by the reliability that my body handles booze just like any other body.

I presumed the NHS guidelines are a bit shit (as are plenty of nhs / even NICE guidelines ) and a simple message perhaps crafted with SIDS statistics in mind where the negative impact of alcohol is more significant.

penguin then as a scientist with so much experience, you will know how much studies can differ and change. How little consensus there is. How studies are flawed, or reach erroneous conclusions. Butter anyone?

No, thats over simplistic. Of course their is good research and bad research, but any scientist worth their funding can see the difference. And lots of outside factors can impact on lots of areas of study. BUT Does biology change? Does maths change? No. Some things ARE fixed. How alcohol enters breastmilk is not something that changes or that is affected by opinion or paradigm shifts. It just IS. It's lazy to trot out the "oh it all changes, one day something is good and the next its bad blah blah". It's nonsense.

We all know why the government can't assert a "safe" limit here

Actually they can. They can state that any guidelines they want to suggest for anyone also applies to breastfeeding women.

I wouldn't drink if I had an almost or exclusively breastfed child which at 6 months I'd expect you to have. Not worth it

Not worth WHAT? NOTHING HAPPENS. There is no problem to guard against!

Thanks Monster Claws, nice of you to say

"Not worth it."

Not worth what? Given that all the evidence suggests having a drink and breastfeeding will make not a blind bit of difference.

Didn't you understand the bit that said "you'd be dead"? You can't drink enough to feed the baby 0.5% milk without actually being DEAD. If you were to drink four glasses of wine and then feed when your milk was at peak concentration for alcohol, your baby would have (very roughly) a blood alcohol content of 0.004%.

Yes, I did understand that. You were the one who mentioned 0.5%, not me. Where does the data come from showing that if you drink three glasses of wine the babies blood alcohol content would be 0.004%?

Check the links throughout the thread. And I said four glasses, and very roughly .004% (you have to account for body weight, age, type of drink, time etc....not that it makes any difference when you are talking such minute quantaties)

The NHS website states that "There's some evidence that regularly drinking more than two units of alcohol a day while breastfeeding may affect your baby's development."

The NHS says a lot of things. But they are citing well known study that suggested that motor development at 1 year may be affected by alcohol use. This was refuted by several better studies later on.
NHS guidelines come from politics, not science.

only teeny tiny amounts of alcohol get into breastmilk, that much we know. But what impact does that teeny tiny amount have?
I could drink a tablespoon of cows milk and my dairy allergic baby would have blood and mucus in his stools for days. surely that spoon of cows milk must be very diluted in my breastmilk but whatever gets through to baby has a huge effect, why is alcohol different? Genuine question.

Yes, it's a bit bizarre it was so recent when you think about it! I remember my mum recommended gripe water for DS, it didn't really do much, but the gripe water she fed to me and my sister before we were three months old would have been about as alcoholic as beer. We are fine, BTW. No health problems, excellent grades at school, so it mustn't have had much of an effect. I know you can't extrapolate from a sample size of two, though. But I suspect that much like in adults, small occasional amounts of alcohol are metabolised through a child/baby's system and work their way harmlessly out, with prolonged exposure causing more potential damage.

Oh sorry. Didn't see last page. That was in response to Gripe water in the 90s.

Allergens are different than substances like alcohol because the body reacts to them in different ways.

"surely that spoon of cows milk must be very diluted in my breastmilk but whatever gets through to baby has a huge effect, why is alcohol different? "

Well, it's the difference between being allergic to something and being poisoned by it! If you have a severe cow's milk protein allergy, even a tiny amount of it can cause you to react, while for something like alcohol the dangerous effect is extremely dose-dependent.

As various people have said above, the milk of mothers who've had quite a few drinks is about as alcoholic as fruit juice or yoghurt, which don't notably give small children alcohol poisoning.

NHS guidelines come from politics, not science.

That isn't true.

Oh this will be a fun thread to read.

OP - I got told that level of alcohol in BM is the same as what is in your blood. Pretty sure that after a bottle of prosecco you'd safely have less than 0.06% alcohol in your boobs.

I had a quick google and came up with a study that used the splendid word 'galactologue' (substance thought to stimulate milk production).

So presumably the Galaxy is called that because the Milky Way is, errm, Milky.

This thread has been worth it just for that.

Few links discussing it:

www.drinkaware.co.uk/alcohol-facts/health-effects-of-alcohol/fertility-and-pregnancy/alcohol-and-breastfeeding/

www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/infant-and-toddler-health/expert-answers/breast-feeding-and-alcohol/faq-20057985

I honestly don't get it. Why do people believe that the only way to have fun is through alcohol? Seriously. Your social life doesn't have to revolve around alcohol. It's perfectly safe to have a year or two when you don't drink anything. As far as I know, nobody has ever been forced to get therapy because they were addicted to no drinking. So why the fight for booze? I stopped drinking alcohol completely (don't even eat tiramisu or other boozy desserts) because of migraines and I'd never been a big drinker before and I'm not even talking about what passes as social drinker on the British Isles. I don't miss it. I can go to a party and have great fun while only drinking mineral water. It's perfectly doable.

It is Mary. The current unit guidelines on sensible drinking are NOT based on the science at all. They are most certainly more about the politics.

I honestly don't get it. Why do people believe that the only way to have fun is through alcohol? Seriously. Your social life doesn't have to revolve around alcohol

WHY do people keep banging on with this kind of comment? YES its very easy to not drink. YES we can have fun without alcohol,blah blah. You haven't found some kind of secret of existence. Of course life without alcohol is doable. Some of us choose to drink alcohol because we WANT to, not because we need to or we can't manage a night out without it. Are you so lacking in imagination you can't see that?
So you don't drink. Thats's lovely for you. What possible reason is there why the rest of can't drink when and what we want to? We could all manage to live without chocolate, or sex, or Netflix, or any other thing you can think of, but we have things in our lives because we like them and we want to!

Jaysus.

only teeny tiny amounts of alcohol get into breastmilk, that much we know. But what impact does that teeny tiny amount have?

None. No impact. RTFT.

It is Mary. The current unit guidelines on sensible drinking are NOT based on the science at all. They are most certainly more about the politics.

I can't comment on that particular guideline but it is not true at all the NHS guidelines come from politics rather than science. Very few, if any are influenced by politics.

I was specifically talking about the ones regarding alcohol. (ALthough I'd like to know who wrote the NHS guidelines on safe eating in pregnancy, because they are nuts!)