Breast feeding and drinking/evenings out

[igirisu]

Hello all!
My first child is 5 weeks old and i am currently breast feeding and plan to for as long as it works for us both, i have had 2 alcoholic drinks since his birth but was wondering if anyone has been on nights out and resumed breast feeding after and if so how? I can express successfully to provide for his feeds while i'm out but its after that i'm confused about, advice would be appreciated!

Congratulations on your tiny baby!

I used to leave it 24 hours after my last drink and then feed dd again.
I would suggest expressing in that 24 hours purely for comfort and to keep your supply up.
There is no need to 'pump and dump' to get rid of the alcohol in your milk it will leave your milk in the same way as it leaves your blood stream (no blood letting required!)

Enjoy your night out!

There is no need to do anything different. As long as you are capable of caring for the baby or someone is, that's all you need to worry about. The amount of alcohol that gets into milk is so miniscule if you bottled it it would legally be alcohol free. To put it in context, the drink drive limit is 0.08%.

The amount of alcohol that gets into your milk is really tiny - it's the same as in your blood, so if you have a blood alcohol content of 0.10 (pretty drunk, over the limit to drive) your blood/milk will be 1 tenth of 1% alcohol. For comparison, Becks Blue non-alcoholic beer is half of 1% alcohol.

Waiting 24 hours to feed again seems extremely excessive to me. The alcohol leaves your system at a rate of about 1 unit an hour, so even if you drink a lot, by morning it should all be gone. Even then, the amounts in your milk are very unlikely to affect the baby.

General rule is, if you are sober enough to hold the baby, you are sober enough to feed the baby! Unless you are roaring drunk I wouldn't worry.

I asked my health visitor and was told by both her and the two midwives in my family that actually unless your baby has a very very sensitive stomach then there is no reason to worry at all (unless you intend drinking yourself into a coma) as such a teeny tiny quantity of alcohol makes it into your breast milk you would literally have to risk alcohol poisoning for it to be enough to be of any effect at all to your babies body. The reason that mothers are advised not to drink is actually to do with the increased risk of falling asleep whilst feeding and all that entails (significant increase of % that pull the baby into their bed to feed when not used to co sleeping due to being intoxicated) and of course any mother falling whilst holding the baby. So you are quite safe to have a few glasses of wine or cocktails etc and feed as usual. The only effect on your milk is that it can in some people make it slightly more acidic which for colicky babies can in ease the risk of stomach ache.

Sorry OP. Info given to me by an (obviously OTT) midwife.
When next babba is born I'll feed sooner after having a drink if I get the chance

0.4% is lethal so you couldn'teven give your baby a Becks!