to think doing coke and breastfeeding are incompatible?

[MrsBates]

Well, I know I'm not being unreasonable really but what are your thoughts? Was at a party recently and two mothers who are breastfeeding were taking coke. One says she is a 'bit naughty' to be smoking spliffs in front of her children but at least she and her husband only do it in the garden. One mum did say she is breastfeeding mainly to lose weight. Nice.

I wasn't a saint back in the day but now I have children - no way - and while feeding?! Still I do have too much wine sometimes and think that is sort of OK. Where do your draw your lines (you know the kind) about recreation of the drug kind?

So do I take it that you are going to share the drugs with your DC if they want to and are old enough? If you are, then fair enough I will accept that you think it is a reasonable choice.

I have been beatng myself up for having a curry tonight as I know it isn't DS's favourite. Can't imagine putting poison in the milk. Am last one to judge what people do to themselves , but I think everyone would be shocked if someone gave their children drugs direct....

"I refuse to believe you never experimented with drugs and/ or alcohol as a teen."

Don't judge everyone by your standards.

Abbey - If you would stop with the Straw Man arguments, you would be a more worthy opponent in this debate.

Sharing drugs with your kids is a different subject. Some people would do it, most others wouldn't. Personally, I wouldn't. Neither would I want them to smoke, although I have smoked in the past.

These are all matters of personal choice. The point is, I repeat, that what adults choose to do in their nights off is no business of yours or any other judgy pants busybody's, as long as they provide for someone else to take over the care of their children.

If once in a blue moon, parents want to leave kids with grandparents for a weekend and go off on an alcohol binge, or pop a pill or two, or join in an orgy, it has no bearing on the quality of their parenthood. They might very well be very good parents who happened to have a fun night out without the kids. As is their right.

so, cote, coke and heroin are ok, in moderation?

the legality is almost a red herring, as so many legal substances are harmful potentially. but no baby died because their mother had a glass of chardonnay with dinner

but i am all for supporting mothers with drug and alcohol addictions, to help them become clean and sober , and to increase drug education. rather than pretending it does not happen or it is harmless.

i do agree with your last post up to a point, but you don;t know if a dodgy E is going to kill you, or that extra line of coke will give you a heart attack or you contract HIV at that orgy... so you know, i thikn it does matter when you become a parent, how you conduct yourslef, even when you are off duty

i know all the arguments about it being more likely you will be hit by a car, so why don;t you stop going out blah blah blah

but there is a difference between driving to the supermarket and the russian roulette of buying and taking illegal substances

but, chacun a son gout. or something

lulu - I never did any heroin, because I know it is extremely addictive physically, and I'd like to think I am not stupid. So would say heroin is never OK, but that is an opinion that comes from relative ignorance (rather than experience).

But I can say from personal experience that cocaine is not at all as addictive, that many people including myself have done it here and there and were not addicted at all, and yes, is perfectly fine in small amounts and done very rarely. Think birthdays and New Year parties.

As I said before, I don't like coke and very probably will never do it again. That is also personal choice. However, I would not judge anybody because they feel like indulging in it, say, twice a year when their kids are safe at grandparents.

You have to let adults live their lives the way they want to, as long as it doesn't harm anyone else. That is, after all, the common definition of 'freedom'. Live and let live, in other words.

It says it all if you are not going to share drugs with your adult DC. When people thought smoking was harmless they were happy to introduce their adult DCs to it. I happily share alcohol with my 18yr old DS.
I didn't experiment with drugs as a teen. Lots of people don't.
If you google 'cocaine environmental damage Columbia' you will find some horrifying things. It is very selfish of anyone in this country to inflict such damage on poor people, without a care, merely because they want to have 'fun'. Fun shouldn't cause utter misery for others.

"you don;t know if a dodgy E is going to kill you"

I refer you to this article. Read the statistics please.

Oh fgs. "Environmental damage to Columbia", indeed.

interesting cote. but i stand by my view

i do concur that as adults, we should live and let live and be free to do as we want, but i personally can;t live by that edict. my children , their welfare and their futures come first. i no longer drink more than 2 - 3 drinks at a time as i never want to be hungover when they are in my care, or intoxicated , never mind coming down.

but you see to have made an informed choice t do what you do, and i have made mine

so we'll live and let live, eh?

That was an interesting article, thanks. Amongst my social circle, anecdotally and unscientifically, a few of us have noticed an abnormally high incidence of mental health issues/depression amongst the ex-heavy pill-takers (most of us them).

I must say that I stopped taking coke for moral reasons (like Helen Mirren!) prior to having kids. The cocaine trade is massively destructive in Colombia. For me the high wasn't worth propagating an industry that causes much misery to many.

I shall leave the thread, it won't get anywhere.
I think anyone who takes coke under the euphemism of 'recreational' should be forced to watch films of the destruction it causes to innocent people in the countries of production.
I find it very sad CoteDAzur that you don't care that nearly 15,000 tons of chemicals such as sulphuric acid and hydrochloric acid are discharged into the Amazon River Basin each year-after all it isn't your child who is going to be using the wells, so you can have your 'fun' in ignorance.

just to add my tuppunce worth here. I very rarely take drugs (anymore) but then I very rarely drink either. I used to take coke, pills etc before having children occasionally maybe once every couple of month.

I can speak from experience regarding the after effects. Coke/pills - you can sleep afterwards after a few hours. You also feel tired but otherwise ok the next day. Speed is a different matter, it will keep you awake for hours and the next day you will be exhausted and bad tempered. However, alcohol has a terrible effect on me, more than a couple of drinks and I have the hangover from hell. I feel sick and shaky for the whole of the next day. No drug has had that effect on me. I would be totally incapable of looking after a child with a hangover - from only a few drinks (maybe three glasses of wine).

I know I have a very low tolerance of alcohol which is why since having kids and not being able to sleep the following day I barely drink now. I very, very rarely take illegal drugs either now because;

• I don't mix with people who take them
• I don't go out much
• I don't want any kind of hangover when looking after kids

BUT can assure you that I would not be incapacited from coke, pills the next day the same way I would be from alcohol!

It's a bad thing to do. and here's why!

yes it is very bad with breast feeding but I am saying to those people who think that the come downs from coke is worse that alcohol that it certainly isn't.

There's not much point in me posting - as a non-drinker, non-smoker, non-drug-taker who has never experimented with any of those things, I will come across as incredibly judgy-pants. But hey-ho, free speech and all that

I think it's entirely irresponsible to smoke around children, and to drink and take drugs when looking after them, or when you'll have to look after them and deal with a hangover/comedown.

Why are drugs "fun"? Honestly, I don't see where the pleasure is in getting a high and a low from something toxic. But each to their own, people are always going to do them I suppose, but it should never involve children.

I started this post and agree with a most of what has been written. I have taken drugs very rarely in the past. Used to work in the film industry and coke is rife - at work as well as at parties. I never did it while working because I took the job seriously and was often driving etc but would occasionally have some at a party. I didn't actually enjoy it much and wouldn't do it again primarily because of my children but also because of expense and it being a waste of time for me. I do drink and occasionally wish I'd turned down the last cocktail because hangovers and three children are a dreadful combination but have only had a couple of hangover I regret in the last couple of years. As the thread says, some people think a few glasses of wine are fine and a line of two of coke is worse, partly because of not understanding how they might affect different people. Some people experience that the other way round. Personally they do make me more wakeful and have little other effect in the quantities I have had - and if I am enjoying myself I have no problem staying up all night naturally. I have often not been to bed at all while the coked up crowd are all asleep so I agree with the posts about it not necessarily keeping you up.

What shocked isn't the fact they were taking drugs, although I have no interest in them myself anymore and now think it is pretty stupid to consume something which might be cut with who knows what.

It was the fact they were more than happy to do it knowing they were breastfeeding in a few hours. Someone here said it stays in your system for 48 hours, someone said 72 - obviously dependent on how much was taken etc but these ladies weren't keeping a tally.

Maybe it should be common sense not to take drugs, but common sense isn't always at its strongest at a party after a couple of drinks when a new is letting her hair down with some old friends - a lot of whom don't have children themselves. I don't judge them for that but I do think that this type of drug user - much more common than some of you thought - would respond to more public info about their choices. On the whole they are responsible and educated women. There are posters about methadone because there are NHS methadone programs to support recognised addicts who seek help. I have done research for a film about junkies at an official needle exchange clinic and talked a lot to the people who work with users including mothers. The kind of drug taking this post was about initially was the kind that isn't addressed in poster campaigns, as smoking and methadone are, precisely because it is illegal and the people who do it are generally on the ball about childcare, attending clinics, checkups etc with their babies. They are not kids on the street or living in circumstances which seem risky. HVs are unlikely to think there are a couple of wraps of coke stashed somewhere amongst the organic babyfood, maybe just behind the breadmaker when the bright eyed mum is chatting knowledgeably about fitting the stairgate, covering the plug sockets and how well feeding is going. I do believe that mothers who fit - roughly - into the kind of middle class picture I have crudely sketched would have their eyes opened if next time they were at the GP or in the clinic - or when they got all the stuff about smoking cessation while pregnant, there was also well produced, non judgmental information about how various 'recreational' drugs can affect babies. It is illegal but people do it and without ever really considering it to be criminal. For the sake of the babies exposed to their ignorance info about it shouldn't be swept under the carpet just because you're not supposed to do it.

Sorry about crap punctuation.

'a new mum is letting her hair down' I meant

Excellent post MrsBates. I don't think we can argue with that.

Thankyou Puzzlerocks. I did discuss Mumsnet with the mums I am referring too - maybe they have read this too.