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??

Interestingly I didn't drink any alcohol while pregnant because there was zero tolerance for that.

Ok people are really focusing on the "life on hold" thing, and implying I have a drinking problem . I abstained from alcohol whilst pregnant as the risks were completely different, I've assessed the risks of drinking whilst breastfeeding and the science shows there's no need to abstain whilst breastfeeding or even limit to "1-2 units once or twice a week" like the NHS suggests. Yes I like wine, I don't really why I should stop drinking wine if I don't need to.

When DD was small I had an occasional small glass of wine. Maybe 1-2/month. She slept through the night from 6weeks-6months so it would normally be after her bedtime feed. I'm not a big drinker anyway, but at a social occasion would have a drink or two. I would be more concerned at my ability to look after her while drinking than breastfeeding. The problem with getting evidence for this sort of thing is that you cannot do a randomised controlled trial obviously so the guidelines will be cautious. It's very unlikely that having a few units will do harm to a baby though.

I've been breastfeeding continuously for over four years now (two different babies; including a year of tandem feeding), and I've certainly not stopped drinking - I just haven't got drunk in that time.

I followed La Leche League advice that if you're sober enough to hold a baby, you're sober enough to feed one. Certainly there's no way I'd have kept up bfeeding for as long as I have if I couldn't have a glass of wine or two with a meal, or a G&T on a night out.

I have two happy, healthy, bright children, btw.

"However I simply don't believe that medical science can't settle this debate for us. We don't need to unethically test the alcohol content of breast milk on live babies fgs. The research hasn't been done because it's not something the drug companies can make money from are interested in. Mumsnet should sponsor the research and then we can all have a winein peace"

This is what I'm saying- I don't think there is anything to find through research. It would be next to impossible to prove a negative (that BF when drinking will never affect a baby) but clearly no link has been found between alcohol, breastfeeding and poor infant outcome.
Forget about drug companies, formula companies could make a killing- it would be a whole new market for them. ulilever et al certainly have the money to sponsor the research.

Sorry none not known in my first post. I have no idea why I did that.

good point glitter.
Someone guided me to a link (might be via Kellymom) where a woman who was a county pathologist or similar in the US did actually test her breast milk. Given she was a highly qualified scientist it was fairly rigorous, though slightly tongue in cheek.
The alcohol content of her bm ranged from the equivalent of one measure combined with 26 litres of soft drink mix, to much more dilute!

I agree OP. People enjoy a drink as part of their social lives. This is not a crime or going to result in immediate liver failure, despite the inferences of some posts on here. Reassuring people that after nine months of what can be a hard (and restrictive) slog through pregnancy, they can have a drink whilst bf, would at the very least reduce the judging and may well encourage more women to start and continue bf.

YANBU OP, I knew what you meant and completely agree

im putting my life on hold when i drive my car, when i go to work, and if i get pregnant....who knew!

I'll take the common sense approach - don't drink to get drunk. I don't do that these days anyway (and haven't for a few years now) but a glass or two once a week, well within recommended limits, seems fine to me. Since ds was born my alcohol intake has dropped considerably anyway because when he was a baby I worried that if I drank too much I wouldn't hear him crying in the night.

Pregnant with no.2 now. Haven't had a drop to drink since discovering I'm pregnant but will enjoy the occasional white wine spritzer later in my 2nd/ 3rd trimester - no more than 1 or 2 units once or twice per week as per the guidelines. I enjoy the taste of wine. If there was a decent non alcoholic dry white wine available I'd drink that instead. Suggestions welcome.

YANBU, there's more alcohol in certain foods (like yoghurt) than there is in breastmilk after drinking.

As long as you were sober enough to old the baby, and you had your DH there to look after it in between feeds, I can't see why you'd have done anything wrong.

Of course it's dangerous to be drunk whilst caring for a baby, but the breastmilk is absolutely safe.

Weird responses OP but I guess they prove your point.

I had a scientist warn me of the effects of fetal alcohol syndrome while I was bf my 4 month old

Has any scientist actually tested BM after mum has had 1 glass or more of alcohol?

Do you mean someone on here nap queen or someone in the world? I would imagine so!

I'm so glad I read this thread, now away to do some research of my own. Expecting my first in July and was expecting to not be able to have a drink for a year, haven't drank in pregnancy at all - not because I think 1 bottle of beer would harm my baby but because we don't drink at home anyway unless we have friends round and I would be scared of being judged in a pub / bar.
I was envisioning attempting to express enough to last until all alcohol was out my system if I even had one or two drinks and how stressful that might be.
I think people are being a bit harsh implying the op has an alcohol problem. Most people's lives do include many occasions where alcohol is involved and it is rubbish not to be able to join in occasionally.
My husband has said a couple of times to me 'you don't need a drink to enjoy yourself' which is true as I'm still enjoying my pregnancy but on the other hand I don't see him rushing to give up alcohol and neither would I expect him to tbh.

There is research on alcohol in BM - easy to test the milk without giving it to a baby - and virtually none gets through, though it can change the taste/smell and as a pp says that can put some babies off.

I bet switching to formula feeding would be higher risk (& obv is very low risk in rich countries) than bf while drinking - so long as sober enough to care for baby and not cosleeping while intoxicated. Though prob if bottle feeding at a wedding you'd still get some wanker castigating you.

I did have the occasional glass whilst feeding but certainly never a whole bottle. Tbf I wouldn’t drink a whole bottle even now.

To a large extent I agree. I did have quite a bit to drink on a night out and because I was expressing (DD was a boob refuser!) I tasted it and it smelt at 10yards like vodka!!! I was surprised how strong it was. I obviously didn't feed it to her. By 2 hours later though the milk was back to normal. So I think light to moderate drinking and/or timing feeds is fine.

People get sanctimoniously competitive about children's health. So even if something is as close to proven safe as it's possible to do, you'll still get the, "I wouldn't take the risk, hun" brigade.

I got irritated with pregnancy advice too and remain convinced that crossing the road is a lot more dangerous than eating a bit of Camembert. Read Expecting Better by Emily Oster. As an economist she gets to grips with the data behind perceived risks - very interesting.

I figured if they were going to pump me up with morphine post cs then I'd have a tiny bit of champagne while bf post birth.

Public health guidelines around alcohol generally do not represent the actual evidence very honestly. 'Safe' drinking guidelines are constantly being reduced more from a desire to wag fingers and control behaviour than because the actual evidence has changed. There was a lot of fuss about how they massaged the figures and left out important facts when they changed the adult safe drinking limits recently.

Anything involving mothers and babies is instantly the focus of even more finger-wagging and moral panic. So why anyone is assuming the 'advice' would be based on facts rather than a sort of weird puritanical nannyism is a mystery.

If there was a decent non alcoholic dry white wine available I'd drink that instead. Suggestions welcome

There isn't. Alcohol is what gives wine it's structure and character. Without it you are just drinking grape juice.

There are some non alcoholic beers that aren't terrible - but they are few and far between. Spritzers sound like a good idea.

Back to the actual topic, OP YADNBU. It's unnecessary and off putting to be so draconian about it - and does nothing to encourage long term breast feeding.

Isn't the theory that a babies liver and kidneys are too immature to process any amount of alcohol, so even if there is a tiny amount in the breast milk it will continue to stack until the organs can cope with it?

Which is why it is advised to limit drinking to avoid putting stress on the organs.

You would never get an ethics committee to agree to research that involved feeding alcohol to an infant in different concentrations, so there is no way to get a definitive "safe amount" confirmed. On the basis of this, they suggest avoiding alcohol to be safe.

This seems like a reasonable stance to me, if you are drinking daily and feeding with the alcohol still in your system on a regular basis you are running the risk of stressing your babies internal organs and that should be avoided.

I've just started having a drink again after 3 months of BFing - just keep it minimal and it's not a problem. I might have the equivalent of a glass of wine a week. It isn't the same as drinking whilst pregnant.