Breastfeeding and medication help

[JustmeandADHD]

Hi all

pretty desperate so would welcome any help!

I breastfeed my baby who is 5 months old. She has had formula on 3 separate occasions and welcomed it. These were due to short outings with dad when I was unwell and he needed to feed her. We didn’t have enough expressed milk at the time.

i have been in hospital and sent home with naproxen and doxycycline as I am in serious pain. I had put off taking the meds for as long as possible in the hopes I could hold out for baby but I have an issue with my throat and can’t eat or drink due to ulcers all in my throat and an ear infection so I am relying on pain killers. The pain is 14/10. I have been crying all day because of how bad the pain is so I had to give in and take the meds.

problem is baby is refusing formula from either me or dad. Luckily I had one meals worth of expressed milk which I have now given her instead but I don’t know what to do. From now she will sleep until approx 5am when she will want another feed but I had a dose of both meds at 8:15pm this evening and doctors said to wait 24 hours from once iv finished the course of meds before I try and resume feeding.

if I stop the meds the pain will be so severe and not being able to eat or drink will also compromise her milk supply anyway. Even ice cream and soup are incredibly painful to eat.

what do I do? I feel like I have let her down and the pain is so bad that I’m getting myself in a state.

I don’t want to assume that she will accept the formula. (She’s happy with the bottle itself as she will drink expressed milk from it). I’m giving her Kendamil which she liked before. I tried her on hipp organic too and she also hated it.

any words of wisdom? I obviously wasn’t expecting to get ill so I didn’t have time to prepare for this. Trying to build up a freezer stash but hadn’t been able to yet

feeling pretty useless and overwhelmed ❤️

Oh gosh OP! Poor you, you definitely need to stay on those antibiotics. If she’s not liking formula, do you have any breastfeeding friends that have a breast milk frozen stash that could help you out?!

You should take the antibiotics and continue to breastfeed if the baby is healthy

So many medical professionals are not clued up on safe medications when breastfeeding and give the wrong advice

Here is what the NHS says

@MalibuBarbieDreamHouse i don’t unfortunately. She keeps trying to breastfeed and is now refusing the remainder of the expressed milk (she only had 2 ounces) so feeling pretty hopeless at this point.

forgot to add they can’t change my medication as I have a lot of allergies to medication too!

im just going to have to stop taking it arnt I? :(

thank you for your message ❤️

And what the breastfeeding network says about naproxen

Thanks for the heads up on the doxycycline.

so it’s just the naproxen that’s the problem. The issue is they can’t switch me to codine as I’m allergic to it so this is one of the only meds I can have. Ibuprofen and paracetamol just weren’t helping. Maybe il have to call 111 and ask them some advice

❤️

Yes I saw some similar advice on this but it said babies should be monitored if mum is on naproxen. The doctor at the hospital and also the pharmacist I saw after both said absolutely don’t take it when breastfeeding. Il try and do some more research. Thank you ❤️

I presume they've already got you on difflam spray for your throat? You can breastfeed on that.

Ibuprofen Lysine is a good alternative to naproxen.

Boots have their own version and it also goes by Nurofen Migraine Pain.

Is this any better for breastfeeding?

Yes I have been using difflam too ❤️

Thank you all for the advice and sorry it took me a while to come back to this thread! She would absolutely not bottle feed so I stopped the naproxen and struggled through the pain. I just used difflam and some throat sweets. The pain was unbearable but I’m on day 5 now (I think) and the pain is now manageable! Still can only eat soup but it’s less painful! Thank you so much for all the support ❤️