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?

Im sure the odd glass is not going to be an issue. I doubt very much a midwife told her she could get wasted.

Had my son 13 years ago. Midwife advice was the same then. I could have a few glasses of wine. Hardly anything goes to baby. Only slight difference was suggested that I could have a drink while breastfeeding or straight after. My son was breastfed on demand. Husband was horrified though I must admit when he came home from work and I'm in the nursery with my son with a glass of wine. Everything in moderation.

That's what I was told back in 2020 as well. As long as you're safe to be in charge of a baby, you can breastfeed while drinking.

The midwife is correct. The thing to worry about is that you shouldn’t be too drunk to care for your baby, and obviously don’t co-sleep drunk

The midwife is correct. The thing to worry about is that you shouldn’t be too drunk to care for your baby, and obviously don’t co-sleep drunk

There are actually quite a few studies that compare sleep deprivation and alcohol consumption. Apparently being sleep deprived is as bad for you, as drinking too much alcohol, but being sleep deprived is an acceptable risk because its an expected risk and is mainly shouldered by women ?

My thoughts too!!! Hearsay!

op, congrats on your pregnancy. Don’t be that person..

In 1997/8 when pg with dd, I had consultant led care having lost the previous baby at 27 weeks. It was a difficult time. He told me that if I usually had a G&T in the evenings, it would take the edge off the stress and do no harm.

I'm pretty sure when I was bf dd, a glass of red resulted in nasty nappies, white was fine. Similarly coffee = nasty nappies, tea was fine. I missed the coffee more than the res wine :)

If you can hold them you can feed them, apparently. I don’t necessarily think it’s great advice however.

Midwife got carried away, but it’s also come to you 2nd hand, so who knows.

A small glass of wine occasionally ok but wouldn’t be drinking more than that and caring for a baby,

You can’t drink on all antibiotics, it depends which ones as some strongly interact with alcohol,

It also can exacerbate symptoms and slow the recovery process of the body even if there isn’t a strong interaction.

I have heard the general advice is you can drink but leave 2h before breastfeeding so the alcohol can metabolise

Totally fine to drink when breastfeeding! The only danger is getting so drunk you unwittingly harm the baby.

I recall pumping after drinking and putting it in the fridge for the next day. When I opened the bottle, it absolutely reeked of alcohol. No way was I giving it to my baby and I barely touched a drop until I stopped BF after that.

Risk what? It has been proved that there IS no risk from drinking alcohol when breastfeeding. You’d have to drink half the contents of the average pub before the breastmilk contained enough alcohol to impact the baby in any way. Clinical tests have shown this beyond any doubt by measuring the rate if transfer to breaskmilk in controlled studies/ lab conditions.

What would you have been “risking” by drinking alcohol while still feeding your baby your breastmilk? It’s exactly this kind of language that is inappropriate: shaming mothers who choose to do something risk free and implying they are being reckless and creating risks to their babies when they are not doing so.

No wonder women have such poor mental health post-partum. Medical/ clinical staff neglect actual risks to their physical and mental health (inadequate mental health support, inadequate treatment of birth injuries, inadequate treatment of prolapses, totally absent post-birth pelvic physio, etc) and yet they are being shamed about non-existent medical issues that some people suspect, despite all evidence to the contrary, might be caused by them doing something perfectly safe.

Drinking alcohol only poses a risk to a baby (who has been born) if someone drinks so much that they are intoxicated to the level they are unsafely drunk at a time they are caring for the baby (e.g. could lead to dropping or injuring the baby or not following appropriate care processes for the baby regarding responding to their needs, or if someone who has drunk alcohol co-sleeps with a baby, but those things apply to ANY adult caring for a baby and have NOTHING to do with being a mother or breastfeeding.

Frankly it is ridiculous to be having to read such comments when this isn’t news: the data demonstrating that a breastfeeding mother drinking alcohol categorically DOES NOT make her breastmilk dangerous to a baby was collated, peer reviewed and published 20+ years ago. It’s astonishing it is even being discussed in 2026 when the science on this is settled and indisputable: there is no reason women should not drink alcohol during the period they are breastfeeding and it has NO impact on babies at all via breastmilk.

I am so angry that women are still having to wade through such misinformation and nonsense on an uncontentious issue.

It will have zero impact on a baby sleeping for all of the reasons explained.

You’re being ridiculous.

How do we know?

Because clinical studies measuring precise levels of alcohol in breastmilk after mothers drinking alcohol have been measured across statistically validated sample sizes to measure the rate of transfer. So we know for a fact that your breastmilk contained no more alcohol than a glass of fruit juice, unless you’d drunk numerous 1l bottles of spirits within a couple of hours before pumping this milk, and even then the amount of alcohol in the breastmilk would be insufficient for olfactory detection by you sniffing it. What you were probably smelling was alcohol on your own breath/ coming from your body. It certainly was not from the milk because it’s physically impossible.

Drinking when PREGNANT obviously IS very dangerous for a baby.

Drinking when BREASTFEEDING is completely different.

When pregnant the baby would have the same blood alcohol level as the mother. This can and often does cause catastrophic developmental consequences if it happens at a crucial time in the baby’s development or the quantities are large or sustained through pregnancy, hence most people abstain because there are large risks.

A breastfeeding mother drinking alcohol DOES NOT have the same effect, at all. There are NO risks to the baby via transfer of alcohol to the breastmilk that would affect the baby unless the mother had drunk an amount of alcohol which would mean she’d certainly not capable of pumping or feeding a child because she’d either be dead, or unconscious/ in hospital fighting for her life.

Drinking alcohol while breastfeeding is not remotely comparable to drinking while pregnant, unless your baby is a vampire 🧛🏻 and drinking your blood rather than your breastmilk.

The advice I got was that it's similar to drink driving. It enters your milk similar to blood. Plenty of photos of me with a baby on the boob and wine in the hand! I feel your friend is embellishing

I am reporting my experience. I am sorry you find that ridiculous.

Drinking when pregnant definitely isn’t comparable to drinking whilst pregnant. I agree.

There are NO risks to the baby via transfer of alcohol to the breastmilk that would affect the baby unless the mother had drunk an amount of alcohol which would mean she’d certainly not capable of pumping or feeding a child because she’d either be dead, or unconscious/ in hospital fighting for her life.

That statement is considerably too categorical and absolute however. The NHS and the Royal Collage of Midwives both disagree with you as well…

www.nhs.uk/baby/breastfeeding-and-bottle-feeding/breastfeeding-and-lifestyle/alcohol/

When I had my 8 year old son I joked about having a glass of wine that evening and the midwife said I should and it would help him sleep

And yet many reliable sources disagree with your black and white statements. Some sources suggest that alcohol can impact a baby even at very low levels, including worse sleep and lower milk letdown. Obviously if you cosleep you're also not supposed to drink.

I found it easier to be tee-total than to faff about worrying about whether I'd drunk too much or too recently. I'm not going to knowingly give a baby alcohol even if it's in small quantities (and maybe it's the same as in orange juice, but I don't give babies orange juice either).

Alcohol and breastfeeding: What are the risks? | Contemporary OB/GYN share.google/iIw2uBRacKXHwHtW5

I can see a world where, to hammer home a point, jokey exaggeration is used. “You could be absolutely wasted and it would be fine as long as you don’t drop the baby, ha ha ha”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK501469/

Evidence-based information helps

The idea that breastfeeding women should avoid all alcohol/pump and dump etc "just in case" to remove all risk in a situation which is already risk free is potentially a deterrent to long term breastfeeding for mothers who might want to have the occasional drink. So much better to trust women with actual facts.