To think this is dangerous advice from a midwife?

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Hi All,

Caught up with one of my friends earlier today. She told me she is pregnant. Earlier than the 12 weeks, and I confessed I am too! Lovely stuff.
Then she told me she had already had an appointment with her midwife and it didn't go well, mostly because my friend told her she would like to breastfeed her baby and then made a joke about it being years to wait for a glass of wine. The midwife told my friend that the guidance has changed, she said she didn't need to wait, as soon as the baby has been born she can drink. Infact, she literally said she can drink and drink and drink until she is wasted. The caveat was though that she would need to be not too far gone so that she couldn't hold her baby - holding the baby seemed important, being drunk whilst breastfeeding her baby was completely fine. But being wasted was ok because it didn't affect the milk, was absolutely fine to be off her face.
I have my first appointment next week and I'll be asking my midwife the question. But I was always under the impression any drink would enter your bloodstream and into your milk as well as potentially affecting your milk supply.
Are we both being unreasonable to think this is not only dangerous advice but completely unacceptable?

To put this into context, your breastmilk has the same blood alcohol content as your blood.

To reach a BAC of 0.5% (the same alcohol content as many non alcoholic wines/beers) you would need to rapidly consume mutiple bottles of wine or a very high volume of spirits.

Anything over 0.40% BAC carries an extreme risk of a coma or death. At 0.5%, your central nervous system shuts down.

You would die long before you could consume enough alcohol for your breastmilk to be alcoholic.

I have a 40 year old, now a parent, who wouldn’t let me dodge a feed when I’d finally had a brandy and lemo! No harm done and midwife unconcerned.

How refreshing to read a full thread of (almost) everyone giving sensible advice.

I usually get targeted on Facebook with (usually American) people angrily commenting on posts that it is COMPLETELY IRRESPONSIBLE to drink even a single drop of alcohol with a baby in the house...

PP have said it but completely fine to drink while breastfeeding... She says whilst polishing off a glass of wine and baby is sleeping upstairs

Yes midwife is right

The alcohol doesn't transfer through to your milk. Or only in truly miniscule amounts.

So Yes you can drink.

The main concern is that you are sober enough to safely care for your baby same as if you were bottle feeding.

This is common advice now.

The midwife is completely correct. You can be off your head drunk and the milk will have the same alcohol level as orange juice. It is not the same as when you are pregnant when her blood goes to the placenta

It's common sense to not drink when handling a newborn, especially while also dealing with lack of sleep. The NHS shouldn't be encouraging new mums to get pissed.

My hall of residence was mixed sex 35 years ago. It wasn’t an issue for me.

It's a weird thing of her to say, but she not wrong. The science is very clear on this

Sorry, wrong thread! I’ll ask for it to be deleted.

Absolutely true. There's no way a parent can drink enough that their breastmilk would become alcoholic enough to be classed as alcoholic to a baby. Imagine drinking a pint of beer, maybe 6% of that is alcohol therefore if diluted in an adult's liquid volume of their entire body, the alcohol percentage of breastmilk would be 0.04%.

A typical infant feed is roughly 120 ml to 150 ml.
At a milk alcohol concentration of 0.04% (0.04 g/dL), a 150 ml feed delivers approximately 0.06 grams of ethanol.

Distributed across an infant's total body water (~3 liters for a 4 kg baby), this produces an infant blood alcohol level of around 0.002%. This level is metabolically negligible and comparable to the trace ethanol produced naturally by normal gut bacteria or small amounts of fruit juice.

It's not dangerous advice, she's just saying you don't have to put your life on hold to breastfeed. It's not like being pregnant.

You can't physically drink enough to make your milk a risk, but obviously there needs to be someone sober enough to care for the baby and you can't bedshare if you've had a drink.

Whaaat???

That's out of date information. Recent studies have proved otherwise and shown alcohol is nearly all filtered out of milk production and only a very miniscule amount would filter through - not at harmful levels. It wasn't studied before - much like many aspects pertaining to female biology.

However it's never advisable to drink too much while caring for a baby, breastfeeding or otherwise.

Having a small glass or 2 of wine will not harm your child while breastfeeding. It isn't the same case for pregnancy though where alcohol should be avoided all together.

The midwife should have mentioned however, that it's not safe to bed share with baby after you have been drinking. Even if you think right now that you will never bed share, lots of people do so it's best to know how to do it safely.
Congratulations on your pregnancy.

Accidentally posted twice

Yes this is the midwife’s point. I don’t think she was actually telling your friend to get wasted with a baby 😆

I genuinely don’t think she was, someone could twisting her words - either the friend or OP.

I believe the midwife was simply making the point - you’d have to drink a LOT of alcohol before any of it would reach baby via your milk.

I'm happy to accept that you would have to be utterly shitfaced before even the slightest amount of alcohol gets through to the baby. But I also think "utterly shitfaced" is many levels of drunkenness above "illegal to drive a car", and maybe nobody should be as drunk as that when they are looking after a baby 😬

This didn't go how I thought at all, and I'm actually really glad I posted it! Thank you to everyone, I stand corrected and I'm sure my friend will be very happy to hear her midwife isn't off her box!
For clarity, the midwife, according to my friend, 100% said it's OK to be wasted. Her words exactly, but given all your responses it is OK, not advisable, but ok (as long as the baby is cared for obviously).
I guess we were unreasonable. Thanks for all the replies 👍

Why is the NHS official advice on their website completely at odds to this? I pasted it above. Here's the link: https://www.nhs.uk/baby/breastfeeding-and-bottle-feeding/breastfeeding-and-lifestyle/alcohol/

Infact, she literally said she can drink and drink and drink until she is wasted.

yeah - I do not believe the midwife said this, literally or otherwise

It's many years since I breastfed my DC but I avoided alcohol. I'm sure we were advised to, it just carried on from not drinking during pregnancy. When did this change?

The NHS tells everyone not to drink

For breastfeeding mothers specifically its paternalism

But it's having the opposite effect because it means some women choose not to breastfeed so they can still drink socially, rather than treating women like adults able to make choices.

For what it's worth feeding a child with a hangover is rubbish and not recommended. But it's not unsafe for the child.

I’d never get bent out of shape over anything someone claims a HCP told them. I’ve witnessed over many many years what people believe they’ve been told can be miles apart from what they’ve actually been told.

Someone’s posted guidelines and you can ask your own midwife in person.