hhhm, so Vicki Scott thinks we need to pump and dump while having a drink?

[5goldrings4MONKEYBIRDs]

see Xmas tips link Yeah, if you're boozing for england but oculd it perhaps be a slight advert for Avent products here rather than fully correct BF advice? i think one or two drinks is usually OK, especially if you have them straight after feeding as we've said many times on this list...

I know MN has gotta have an income from somewhere but adverts disguised as advice aren't helping anyone. or is it just me?

FGS GGMM, have two! Play it by ear, or perhaps by boob, and see how you get on. Adjust up or down as necessary: if bubba has a hangover next morning, drink less!

tyv that is such a good idea, please please post it on the tips bit. would prob be excellent cocktail shaker too.

go on, someone do the cocktail measuring tip, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease...

lol 5goldrings, I will watch out for baby hangover symptoms and adjust accordingly.

lol at play it by boob!

Prunie, offtopic but just read your tip: my DH... and I knew it was bad when I caught him driving off to the latenight Tescos the night before my birthday... gave me a Topgear DVD once.

ok, off to post my tip! I feel slightly norty though, however it is the season to be (extra) jolly.

wahey - Tiktok's waded in!

Monkeybird, had you given birth not two weeks previously?
Given him his most precious thing in life, a perfect child?
I wept...
(I quite fancy a TopGear DVD though, shows how I have changed in the intervening years...)

hmm, may be good advice if you plan to go on a 12 to 72 hr bender. but surely after the 3 hr (in my case anyway) you wouldn't be able to attach pump to nork.

as for what i think of that piece of advice... [snurk]

I would love to know where these "experts" come from. Do they wake up one morning and think ?

"I know a few facts, I'll make up the rest no one will notice."

What is the deal with alcohol then - it is so confusing for us first timers. I had a glass of wine last Friday right after my DS had had a feed so that there would be a gap before I fed him again. Is that ok or should I give him a bottle of EBM at the next feed?

Alcohol leaves breastmilk at the same rate it leaves the rest of your body - approx one unit per hour. If you have a large glass of wine and then leave it two hours, there won't be any alcohol in your breastmilk.

Some people say not to worry and the amounts that get through don't affect the baby, but this is in dispute. Personally I would advise people to wait one hour per unit for the alcohol to leave the breastmilk where possible.

Stefka - it's lnly confusing because there is so much misinformation around!

Because of the chemical structure alcohol, it gets into the breastmilk pretty rapidly, at the same rate as it gets into your blood - but the amount of alcohol transferred is very low.

The alcohol is diffused out of the breastmilk, back into the bloodstream. I quote:

"Unlike urine, which stores substances in the bladder, alcohol is not trapped in breast milk, but is constantly removed as it diffuses back into the bloodstream."

That quote is from this Canadian medical website:

www.cfpc.ca/cfp/2002/Jan/vol48-jan-clinical-1.asp

So, pumping and dumping, or waiting a long time, is really pointless as Nature does the job for you, at a rate of something like 1-2 hours per unit of alcohol, which is how long the average human body takes to get rid of it, via the liver.

Mothers differ in how worried they are about any of this. Small amounts of alcohol will really not affect the baby in anyway. Larger amounts have been shown to affect let down. Really massive doses of alcohol - far more than most people would ever have at one sitting - might have observable effects on the baby (mainly sedation). But even then, while it is obviously not a good thing in any way at all, the baby would get over it.

There's an element of common sense in all this. You would want to avoid all alcohol if you were expressing for a tiny pre-term baby , I think. A term, healthy baby is different. You'd prob not worry at all about occasional, moderate drinking...and you'd be very sceptical of people who tell you that you should pump and dump, 'cos if they tell you this, they are showing how little they know about how breastfeeding works.

Hope this helps!

That is a fantastically helpful post Tiktok. Thank you.

Has anoyone made an approach to MN Towers to say by all means, take Avent's money, but please don't let Vicki Scott give out advice on infant feeding?

I mean, the stuff about alcohol is not a matter of opinion, or parenting style, but of biological fact. And she clearly doesn't know she doesn't know....

You're welcome, Kathy.

I wsih wish wish all mothers were told this, and then they could make their own decisions about what to do about alcohol.

I have heard from many women (in my work as an NCT bfc) and here pn mumsnet, who are so confused about it. A mother I spoke to recently had been told by her HV to stop breastfeeding for 24 hours after a night out, and to express in advance, and to pump and dump for 24 hours afterwards.

I mean....what a palaver.

That's so helpful and clear! Thank you

The thing is for most of us, we are set up to deal with alcohol, it occurs in nature and we have evolved with it to some extent (some people do have a genetic inability to deal with it though, but it's fair to say you'd notice if half a glass of wine made you fall asleep at the dinner table and then kept you pissed for the whole evening - and might decided not to drink and breastfeed...).
Not that avoiding it is a bad thing - just, you know, what did women do in cultures where weak beer was safer than water, hence the population drank nothing but weak beer all day?? Presumably those women breastfed and didn't bother pumping and dumping (god that phrase is so yuck).

That's interesting Pruni - I hadn't thought of the evolutionary angle.
I had been happily boozing and feeding lately without giving it much thought (though I rarely get very pissed) but looking back, when ds was tiny last Christmas I was instinctively limiting my drinking and giving him a bottle rather than bf on the couple of occasions when I'd had too much.

TikTok, my HV told me the same as your post of 10:35:43, so it's what I did
I have to say though after a night out on the tiles, drinking probably 6/7 vodkas, when I 'pumped and dumped' it stank of alcohol, like a stale pub iyswim. That would've been about an hour per unit aswell, so I'm slightly baffled.
(I do trust your advice would just like to be reassured really!!)

Tinytim - it was probably you that stank of stale alcohol, not the milk

I'm not sure if you remember tiktok, but my very first mumsnet post was on this subject. I wanted to go out when dd was 3 months old, having not drunk until then, and my HV went one beter and instead of advising P&D, said "if alcohol is that important to you, I suggest you give up bf and bottlefeed". Thankfully I got significantly better advice here. And I had lovely people enquiring as to the state of my hangover the next day!

i'm sitting here feeling a bit smug. (should I instead?)

Last Tues. I felt like a cantankerous relentless harpy when posting awkward insightful questions on her VS's Live Chat.

OMG you are SO right about the Avent Products.

We need more of those Tips:

1. The tops really ARE useful for cups of tiny babies

1. The bottles really ARE useful for measuring precise quantities of liquid in cocktails or recipes - I always use for my Delia Yorkshire Pudding which requires 55ml of water

1. The bottles are useful for measuring and shaking salad dressings (with the flat storage lid on) - toss a big marble in and you have a Jamie Oliver ShakerMaker for FREE!!!

1. The soft rubber "massage petal" on the breastpump is ideal for teething babies to chew on - it's just the right size for them to hold

(Don't sue me please if your baby actually manages to eat one and chokes - THIS IS NOT WHAT THEY ARE DESIGNED FOR. I'm just saying that it worked for me )