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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think drugs and breastfeeding don't go well together.

145 replies

Sushipaws · 30/01/2008 22:14

Now, I'm not a prude, each to thier own, I don't care if people want to get wrecked at the weekend, many of my friends do. But.....

I have just got off the phone to my mate who was out at the weekend with a girl I know. The girl had a ds about 5 months ago and moved away to be nearer her parents. She was up visiting for the weekend and had left ds with her husband. They went out on Friday and Saturday night. On the Friday night she took E and Coke but said she couldn't on the Saturday night as it wouldn't be out her system by the time she bf her ds on Sunday night.

I was really shocked, surely it takes longer than one night to leave her blood stream. I told my mate I thought the girl was an idiot and very selfish. My mate said I was over reacting and she knows a few mum's who have bf and occationally taken drugs.

Some expert advice needed here, would it still be in her system?

OP posts:
bigbumhole · 31/01/2008 16:13

I don't think taking drugs and parenting mixes well together regardless of the situation. I'm not shocked at your situation, a little saddened perhaps.

Personally i would just stay out it all together and I wish your friend well.

MisterUrbanDryad · 31/01/2008 16:19

Sushi - since you've alreadt judged this mum, it doesn't really matter wether you ABU or not. however, i don't think it\s very nice to call her selfish and an idiot. but again - since you don't know her, i doubt it matters. i'm sure there are people who have called me a selfish idiot behind my back but what i don't know won't hurt me eh?

BITCAT · 31/01/2008 16:25

I think it's very wrong i mean i rarely touched a paracetamol when i was breastfeeding and i think i had 1 snowball at xmas. I think it's very selfish and above all very stupid, when you become a mother you have to put your baby 1st and can't be selfish. And i actually think that even if she wasn't bf it would still be selfish, i mean what would happen to her child if anything happened to her. I enjoy a good night out like anyone and i still love clubbing (although dh doesn't) even at my old age with 4 kiddies, and i can have fun and stay awake without the need for drugs...very bad, makes me very angry!!!

twelveyeargap · 31/01/2008 16:30

I think you need to "pump and dump" if you take recreational drugs whilst breastfeeding, to make sure the "tainted" milk is removed from teh body. Though, presumably if said person planned not to breastfeed for a certain time then she'd need to pump to keep up supply? Maybe not if she was thinking 12 hours.

LadyVictorianSqualor · 31/01/2008 16:41

Pumping and dumping is pointless, be it for drugs or alcohol.
Breastmilk does not make a full boob and then wait til after its emptied to renew it with clean milk, it's more like blood, the milk in your system kind of cleans itself like blood would iyswim.

This thread needs tiktok.

twelveyeargap · 31/01/2008 16:43

Oh, read it on the interweb somewhere when investigating alcohol/ breastfeeding. Am by no means expert.

LadyVictorianSqualor · 31/01/2008 16:45

It's something they claim to need to do in America, so I'm not at all surprised you read it, I did it when ever I drank whilst I BFed DS and then recently found out it was pointless.

Bramshott · 31/01/2008 16:49

I think the point of pumping and dumping is to maintain supply / ease discomfort while you wait for said substance to leave your system, rather than to make it go any faster.

ggglimhoho · 31/01/2008 16:55

I saw a french tv programme last night (flyon wall documentary) where a driver took recreational drugs at theweekend and bloodtested positive on the thursday pm!

Scampmum · 31/01/2008 17:01

I would have thought it was longer - I would guess (without any foundation) that if it would show up in a urine test (I thought at least 3 days) then it would be in your breastmilk to some degree?

I agree with the parenting/responsibility stuff - I had a friend of a friend who had a baby about 6 months after my DD, totally unplanned, they are very trustafarian, Notting Hill stuff and they used to HOST weekend-long coke benders in their flat WHILST THE BABY WAS THERE. She was bfing but I don't know the details of how long she used to wait etc. I talked to her about it on the mutual friend's hen (she was utterly fucked all weekend, had no sleep - and with a six-month-old at home??) and she said her DD just lay in her moses basket in the corridor and if she cried someone would feed her.

I definitely had much less respect for her (from a low base, admittedly) but I didn't really tell her my issues with it outright. Is it just her business, though? Or are the interests of the child the most important thing?

Scampmum · 31/01/2008 17:02

'stuff'? Meant 'set'.

twelveyeargap · 31/01/2008 17:08

She needs one of these if she's going to do it.

Home drug test kit.

They're the same ones they use when you do medicals for jobs.

mumzyof2 · 31/01/2008 17:09

I personally wouldnt take drugs and bf, but some people will think its ok - just like some people think its ok to smoke and be pregnant.
You're not a prude because you care! I would have thought about it for a while too. Coke does take a hell of a long time to come out of your system - my dp had a drugs test about 5 months after having coke, and it came up positive.
And at saying people who have done grugs dont deserve kids! So I should have had an abortion then? Theres a difference between having a couple of lines of coke when somebody else is babysitting your dc for the night, than sitting and injecting heroin all day whilst looking after your children. MOST people have tried SOME kind of drug - be it just weed - but to say those people dont deserve children? A lot of children whose parents have done drugs at some point are looked after a lot better than some children whose parents have never done anything!

mumzyof2 · 31/01/2008 17:10

Oh, and dp's drugs test was a hair one, so its in your body for a while.

LadyVictorianSqualor · 31/01/2008 17:16

The ahir tests can be done for months, it isnt still in your body as such, just does soemthing to your hair so you can see for ages, the hait tests can actually be done quite a while after the blood tests show you as clean.

twelveyeargap · 31/01/2008 17:16

Unusual, almost unheard of, as I understand it, for cocaine to come up on a urine drugs panel after five months, except in a chronic user. Cannabis yes, but not cocaine. Actual drug cocaine stays in system (bloodstream/ urine/ breastmilk) for 1-3 days. The metabolite your body produces after taking the drug is the thing that is detected in lab tests and that can stay in the system for up to about 30 days in a chronic or regular user.

mumzyof2 · 31/01/2008 17:18

Although I have to say - at least she refused the drugs on the second night - imagine how many people wouldnt.

twelveyeargap · 31/01/2008 17:25

Tis very hard to go out with your normal friends and not do what you and they normally do, be it drinking or taking lines of coke. I stopped going out whilst pregnant and bf, to be honest. It was easier than not being able to join in.

I expect some people are just less aware of how toxic drugs are to a baby, than others.

Reallytired · 31/01/2008 17:25

A lot of people have tried drugs or even are ex addicts. If they have completely kicked the habit then there is no reason why they should not have the chance of parenting.

When you have a baby you have to grow up and this means not doing lines of coke or taking e. The baby has rights as well.

I am sure that if you told social services that a mother was taking class A drugs and breastfeeding then they would investigate.

twelveyeargap · 31/01/2008 17:31

Yes, really helpful to get social services involved with someone having one big night out whilst her baby is cared for by another responsible adult and take their resources away from babies who are being routinely neglected.

Having a baby does not mean you have to stop taking recreational drugs, if that's what you want to do. It does mean that you have to educate yourself about the effects of drugs. Be it to understand that you cannot breastfeed and take drugs, or that you cannot take drugs and be responsible for your baby whilst under the influence, or that you can no longer afford to take drugs, because of financial responsibilities.

We're talking about "social" drug taking here, not Trainspotting-style shooting up.

I understand that for some people there is no difference, but there is to me, and there should be to social services.

LadyVictorianSqualor · 31/01/2008 17:34

Jeez, hang the woman!
I dont take drugs, ahvent for years, decided that risking my life on something that could be a cocktail of whatever after having kids wasnt for me, but doesnt mean this woman needs the SS involved!

I agree with whomever said at least the second night she refused becasue she was breastfeeding, at least she is caring enough to think that, if she is misinformed about how long it takes then fair enough, give her more info but at least she is trying.

I've seen people sit and have a spliff whilst bfing baby on lap fgs!

AND nearly had one myself when DD was in SCBU,if DP's mum hadnt came in and told me that it went through to my milk I wouldve had one.

jlilly · 31/01/2008 17:39

Taking E is a risk regardless, you dont know what is in it and how your body will be effected by it. People drop dead after taking one E. How nice (not) that she didn't think of her dd when she took it. Surely after having children you should put these days behind you, after all, you have produced a life that depends on you for everything.

Yes people drink but i have never heard of someone dying from drinking one glass of wine, or smoking one fag.

Reallytired · 31/01/2008 17:40

"Having a baby does not mean you have to stop taking recreational drugs, if that's what you want to do."

Cocaine and e are class A drugs. Taking them is against the law. Grow up! Infact possession is enough to get a jail sentence.

People don't turn into drug addicts overnight. Next door to my church is a drug rehabilation unit and sometimes people from the unit come to our church. They are normal people with two eyes, ears, a nose and a mouth. They aren't strange alien creatures. They ever set out to be come drug addicts. They were just like the poster's friend having a few nights.

Often taking drugs (including cocaine) has totally ruined their lives. Cocaine is VERY addictive. Its one thing to mess up your life, but another thing to mess up a child's.

FioFio · 31/01/2008 17:44

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

mumzyof2 · 31/01/2008 17:47

Cocine isnt VERY addictive. 1/10 people become addicted to coke after prolonged and heavy use.