To be annoyed with pharmacists whilst breastfeeding...probably unreasonably

[Meshy23]

I’ve been breastfeeding for 5 months but in that time I’ve had colds, aches, travel sickness and now quite severe constipation. In that time I’ve gone to the pharmacist for advice (in a bid of easing pressure on GPs) but without fail the minute I tell them I’m breastfeeding they refuse to give me any medicine.

I totally get this but what grated me most was I suffer badly from travel sickness and before a flight I wanted travel sickness medicine. I told the pharmacist that I can give my baby formula and pump and dump until the meds’ were out of my system which they calculated (i give DD a bottle of formula at night so have no issue with this). The pharmacist flat out refused and said they cannot dispense the medicine as I am breastfeeding even if I don’t give my milk to the baby. End of - no alternative advice in either situation.

I love pharmacists but I do feel quite alone suffering (mildly) without any medicinal help for symptoms.

Maybe I should not want any medicines. Maybe I should be happy that there is a stringent level of protection for young children. But I just feel a bit annoyed especially as it’s not like pregnancy where medicines can go straight through the placenta and I can avoid giving my breast milk if necessary. It feels like another example of a new mum being ignored!

But I’m being unreasonable and feeling sorry myself about a first world problem right?

That pharmacist should have had a bit more common sense and if you had said that you weren't going to give the breastmilk to the baby while you were taking the medication, they could of course sold it to you and advised you how long it would take to be out of your system after stopping taking it.

I can understand some pharmacists erring on the side of caution though if they're worried you might not follow their instructions.

But if you had said that you would continue breastfeeding while on the medication then unfortunately they wouldn't have been able to supply it to you. The licensing of over the counter medications is much more strict than the same medications on prescription so there are loads of scenarios when a pharmacist can't give you something but a GP can do it on prescription.

YABU.
Pharmacists are highly trained professionals and are regulated, as others have said to NOT give you something that might make YOU or your baby that one in a million.
I'm more flummoxed that you go to them for colds tbh.

‘You have to weigh up the risks against the symptoms being suffered. The current situation isn't reasonable and I'm pretty angry about what happened to me when I could have taken medication for it.’

Your doctor can prescribe anything off licence, no reason you couldn’t have been treated even a pharmacist refused a sale.

Jenni, I do understand but when it actually says on the nhs website that a drug is considered safe whilst breastfeeding and a pharmacist says it’s not recommended it does make you feel like they are not that well informed. Especially when it’s a widely used drug such as ibuprofen. Are there actually any drugs that are licensed for breastfeeding mothers? I’ve not come across any so unless we are expected to suffer unpleasant symptoms needlessly for how ever many years some of us breastfeed someone somewhere has to apply a bit of common sense

I might not have got a GP appointment for 2 weeks which wouldn't have been much help in my case. This blanket approach risks people ignoring the risk completely and lying to get something they actually shouldn't take.

You may reasonably argue that all drugs need to be fully tested for safety in breast-feeding , and I think all new ones are

No they’re not. For the same reason they’re not fully tested for safety in pregnancy.

Nobody wants to risk hurting their baby but it is useless to tell breastfeeding mothers not to take anything ever because “well we haven’t tested so we don’t know”. Even for drugs where we know that barely any of it gets into the milk, and the drug itself is considered safe to prescribe directly to babies, you still get that.

I have had health professionals refuse to give me antibiotics, painkillers, necessary surgery, until I pushed back and asked for another opinion or brought them info from the BFN factsheets. And then it always turned out there was a breastfeeding-compatible drug they could give me. But they wouldn’t even try to start with, it was just “tough, either give up breastfeeding or be very ill.” Last time I had this discussion in a hospital the nurse eventually called a pharmacist, whose first response before even trying to find a safer option was “just tell her to give the baby a bottle.”

Solihooley, the manufacturers and the MHRA control the licence agreement, it is legally binding and whilst some pharmacists use their clinical discretion to go against this you must be able to back up your decision of legally required to. If a complaint is made against you that you harmed their baby (even if it proven that you didn’t) you can be penalised for an off licence sale.

It’s not a case of being ill informed at all, you are asking someone to risk their livelihood for your convenience.

Why on earth are you angry at the pharmacist? Because you are breastfeeding, you need gp advice instead! And actually, for some of the things you're asking about, you don't even need a pharmacist. Drink more water and some prunes daily for constipation. Take anparacetamol for a cold, and as for travel sickness, how often do you fly??? I'm assuming you've been once with baby and couldn't get the tablets because of the breastfeeding. Next time you need some, be prepared to lie about the breastfeeding if you are going to bottle feed instead for the duration.
It isn't the pharmacists fault!!!

I don't blame the pharmacists, it's a bad system, not bad individuals. The other issue is that the GP system and pharmacy system don't work well together in these cases.

‘The other issue is that the GP system and pharmacy system don't work well together in these cases.’

Sadly true. We want so often to seamlessly signpost to each other but it’s not easy.

JenniR29, given going off licence could cause you problems, where a drug is clearly safe then the best option is surely not to tell the pharmacist that your breastfeeding?

It's the same in pregnancy. My poor husband suffered from a variety of minor ailments as i wasnt about to waste bus money and my time on a pointless gp appointment and prescription for something that the nhs reccomends during pregnancy.

Stupid autocorrect.
Not bus money. Nhs money.

I was hospitalised with a breast abscess when ds1 was 6 weeks old... the consultant told me I could no longer feed as I was so ill I needed particular meds. The specialist breast nurse told him not to be ridiculous, listed all the meds I could take and advised that in all honesty even if I fed him when I was off my face on morphine he would probably just be a bit sleepy (I didn't feed him then as I was too off my face to do do safely). Anyway I fed my baby for almost 2 years!

Wendy at the breastfeeding network is fab

Hug, I didn’t say the system was great or what I want (would love more freedom to exercise my clinical judgement), I’m just trying to explain the legal bind we are in.

I also can’t stress enough the danger of people ‘doing their own research’ when it comes to medicines.

But when we’re talking an off the counter medicine like ibuprofen will a pharmacist really be liable? They are not dispensing the drug, and in my case weren’t even serving at the till. You can buy it in the supermarket. I’ve also been refused the sale of Epsom salts. Maybe we just have very officious pharmacists round here.

‘But when we’re talking an off the counter medicine like ibuprofen will a pharmacist really be liable?’

Yes. Yes they are. Even if I’m on the toilet and someone else sells something in my absence, I’m legally liable!!

I will also point out that our regulatory body always has been over zealous. The only person who worked with Harold Shipman to be professionally reprimanded was the pharmacist!!

I also wonder if the perception that you can't really take any medication when breastfeeding puts a lot of women off doing it.

Doing your own research may be risky but in all of the unofficial breastfeeding I groups I chat to this is commonplace advice. I mean a lot of BF mums are back at work making it even harder to access a GP, we don't have a better option at the moment.

I appreciate it’s not easy Snuggy but as I mentioned earlier, websites do not get updated frequently enough to keep up with the alerts about medicine safety. You also do not know on forums etc what qualifications people have (I’m not lying but there’s nothing to stop me posing as a pharmacist on here for bants!).

The risk is obviously yours to assume but as an expert in medicines I’m strongly advising against it.

Thanks for the help ladies.

In response to some of the questions - of course I don’t go to a pharmacist when I normally have a cold -i would buy something over the counter if I really needed something. But I went To the pharmacist at our sainsburys this time because I was breastfeeding due to not being able to take a decongestant.

• how often do I fly - very regularly due to DH’s family being abroad.

• someone asked me why I want to lie to the pharmacist - the whole point is I haven’t. I wanted to tell the truth to avoid causing harm to my baby but I wanted constructive advice of any sort given I was breastfeeding and I’m not a medical professional. The pharmacist calculated how long the medicine would take to leave my body but then said they can’t prescribe anything.

But on the advice in this thread, I’ve just made myself an appointment with the GP for this. I did not want to waste GP time for something that I wouldn’t think twice about if I wasn’t breastfeeding. But I won’t be taking a risk with this given pharmacists seems to have licensing restrictions.

Thanks again.

Good choice OP.

Well yes you could just go to a different pharmacy and lie that your baby is 100% formula fed. Then obviously do the pump and dump thing. Except you'll need to find out how long to do the pump and dump thing and some drugs stay in the system in trace amounts for weeks by which time your baby may have got so used to bottles that it is difficult to reestablish. Is it really worth it?

I don't think its unreasonable of the pharmacists. To get a medicine specifically licensed as safe for breastfeeding mothers there would have to be a double blind trial using thousands of babies, with half the breastfeeding mothers given a placebo and half given the medication, there would need to be rigorous controls to ensure the mothers were all breastfeeding the same extent in each group (accounting for some topping up with formula and some not) and then wait and find out if there is a statistical difference in negative outcomes in half the babies compared to the other half. This would be a completely unethical experiment to do and no drug company is going to attempt it especially not for something that is unpleasant but survivable like travel sickness.

But I believe lactulose is Ok for pregnancy and breastfeeding if prescribed by a GP and will help with the constipation.

What is this utter nonsense about being a 'vessel to the more important baby?' 😂. A pharmacist wouldn't give YOU something if you gave them information that meant the medicine wasn't suitable for you. For example, if you went in and said you had bad reactions to a certain drug, they wouldn't give you anything with that drug in it. They aren't making the baby more important, they are following the rules set out by the supplier of the drug and making sure they don't have a law suit on their case. A lot of medicines aren't suitable, in any dose, for a baby under 6 months old and if there's even a 1% risk that it will get into their system via breastmilk, they just won't take the risk. Just as they wouldn't with a non breastfeeding person if they gave information that meant certain medicines weren't suitable.

Good old MN's turning everything into that old 'we aren't viable humans anymore because we've had a baby'. No. It's health and safety and people doing their jobs and any person on here would go nuts if their baby was affected badly after they were given a drug by a pharmacist that clearly stated do not give to pregnant or breastfeeding women.

OP, I wouldn't be comfortable either going against what they've said but if you go elsewhere, you might get a decent one that offers natural alternatives for you. Or look online and see what advice is out there about alternatives 🙂

Well I certainly wouldn't put myself through another episode of what I had without any medication. I think people just do what they have to in order to access medication they need. I also know a lot of people who buy online because they work full time and it's too difficult to get to a GP. Life isn't ever going to be risk free.

‘Or look online and see what advice is out there about alternatives 🙂’

Don’t do this either! Natural does not equal safe. There are absolutely no requirements for alternative medicines to be tested for safety or efficacy.