breastfeeding and the mini pill (pop), anyone else with reservations??

[mamaesi]

Has anyone else breast fed while taking the pill?

With my first I didnt use any pill and didnt get my period until I stopped breast feeding..which was ok as I thought another child would not be so bad.

This time, I do not want to risk getting pregnant and have been told the mini pill is ok... but i cant help worry that this is just considered ok right now and that a few years down the line they will tell us that actually it is not a good idea. I mean if alcohol and so many medicines are not safe when breastfeeding, how can a quite strong hormone be ok??

I cant help but worry about the breastmilk being tainted.
Is a condom really the only alternative? Anyone else concerned?

Very few medicines are actually unsafe while breastfeeding - it's relatively straightforward to check whether a medication is coming through in your milk.

There are some indications that even the mini pill can reduce your milk supply, so it's worth keeping an eye on it. (It's safer than depo, though, because of course you can at least stop taking the pill if it's a problem.)

The diaphragm is another option, or the IUD, or the cervical cap ...

or Mirena coil - lower dose of hormones I think than the mini pill and you don't have to remember to take it - or your OH could have the snip...

ask your pharmacist to see the instructions - apparently there was a study for the mini pill where it followed the children who were breastfed untill they were 5, or maybe teens? and there were no problems detected.

as far as the supply issue, if it does effect you - it should sort itself out again with regular feeding. it's very rare for it to down your supply forever.

I was nervous, its condoms or copper coil otherwise. am 10 days into the mini pill so far, and havn't noticed any problems yet.

I went to doc and got mini pill when DD was about four weeks old, but got myself all concerned about it and ended up not taking it. I'm just a bit funny about things like that, I hate even taking paracetamol when pg or BFing.

Mind you, we decided to (sporadically) use condoms instead and I'm now 13 weeks pg with DC2 after one episode of non-use, so I'm not the best person to listen to.

Oh and by the way you can drink alcohol while BF to.

I'm on the Mirena coil and used the mini pill last time after DD haven't had a problem with either forms of contreption and milk supply.

Never had any concerns about taking the mini pill while BF.

And where is the official as opposed to busybodies advice that alcohol is not safe while bf? There is no problem with alcohol in moderation.

And don't even get me started about alcohol while pregnant: the medics acknowledge that the research as not changed but the government changed the official advice to zero, openly admitting that it was because they couldn't trust women to count the number of units, so it was easier to say zero.

my concern actually was not over whether it works nor whether it would affect my supply... but rather the validity that it is ok for the milk and therefore baby...I mean there are guidelines about weaning and medicines that change all the time and I do not want to be one of those statistics where they decide ten years later that the mini pill while breastfeeding is actually harmful!

And I totally disagree that lots of medicines are safe while breastfeeding. My mom had a corse of antibiotics while breast feeding me (not sure which ones, in the 70s) and my milk teeth had no enamel and I had horrible adult teeth and the doctor actually said it was a result of the breast feeding while on medication.

The whole reason why I want to breastfeed is to keep it natural and the healthy way for my child...I cant help thinking hormones cancel that out

Lots of medicines ARE safe when breastfeeding. That is true.

A very few aren't, so they should be avoided, such as tetracyclines, the antibiotics that your mother may have been taking.

I think the hormone in the mini pill is something you make yourself anyway - and as I understand it if you were pregnant you would have higher levels of it -and I guess you would be comfortable BF when pregnant
as someone said its actually quite easy to tell if a drug is going to be a problem with BF - as opposed to the effect on the baby when pregnant - as you can measure levels in the milk

The offical advice is that you CAN drink alcholole in moderation while BF. Very little alchole achtaualy get's into the milk you have to have had quit a few for it to cause a problem

www.breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk/pdfs/Breastfeeding_and_Medication_FAQs_March_2009.pdf

And as it's safe to take the morning after pill while BF (which is a very high does comapred to the minipill) then I don't see how it would be a big problem taking the pill.

Most medications are safe as they can measure if they through into the pill. What is odd is that some GP's worry about prescibing med's to the mum when they are actualy licenced to be given to baby's directly.

The hormones in any pill are just synthetic versions of those your body would produce while pregnant - it's perfectly safe to breastfeed while pregnant (otherwise it would probably be a much more effective contraceptive!) - so I wouldn't worry about it.

There are three basic levels of drug-breastfeeding compatibility (there are more levels in between, with slightly more subtle distinctions) - the highest is those drugs which have been tested and found to cause little or no risk to the nursing infant, the middle one is one which hasn't been tested, but has never been known to cause problems, and the lowest are those which have been shown to cause problems either by testing or by reports on a case-by-case basis. They didn't have the highest category in previous decades - medicines would either be in the middle one or the bottom one, and possibly not even that. So if they say something is definitely safe now, it's probably safer to trust that than it was in the 1970s or when they told nursing mothers to drink beer etc :)