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?

1. If you cut a round hold in the top of the flat rubber storage lid on the bottles, it makes a fabbie no-spill paintpot for toddlers.

(I hvae about a zillion Avent bottles utilised in various ways around my house)

Lol, prufrock, it was definitely the milk!

Re drinking and bm, can someone tell me the statistic for blood alcohol levels in terms of a percent? Because I think this is useful.

I think people think "Oooh I am this drunk, therefore baby will be this drunk" whereas actually, your blood alcohol is ?% which is the equivalent of baby drinking ?% and this % is soooo tiny that you realise it is not going to affect baby at all

Compare that percentage to the gripe water we used to drink, for example, which was 4.4% alcohol

We can't get gripe water in the Republic of Ireland any more, we have to go up North! I seem to remember something about a figure of 5%, MP, but can't remember whether it is that the alcohol level will be 5% of what you drank or what is in your bloodstream. Tiktok?

But little babies shouldn't be having any alcohol at all, MP, gripe water days are over. I don't think you can point at gripe water and say "oh it never did them any harm". Alcoholism is a huge problem.

it's illegal now to give children under 5 any alcohol at all - some of us would prefer not to pass on even small amounts in breastmilk either

Nothing wrong with choosing not to drink though franny.
It's just, you know, if you want to and you think it's going to there in your milk in the same quantities as is in your bloodstream, and it's going to stay there and need to be poured away...if that's wrong, I think people need to know.

Oh man, I only kept one bottle (for emergency cm-ing purposes). Now I wish I'd kept more!! Cocktails it is!!

out of all her toys dd likes the round cap for the avent pump (also used as a stand) best!

i like it when the pump leaks

Mothers need information, and then the choice to do what they want with that information....I really don't think there is any justfication for being directive about it, given the evidence that babies are not effected by occasional, moderate drinking.

But Franny you probably aren't giving them any alcohol at all, or the equivalent to a well ripe banana, or something ... I wondered exactly what the %age is exactly, per unit of alcohol in the mother's bloodstream

TBH putting yet more 'conditions' on breastfeeding would only force the already low rate lower.

As mothers we can make a decision which we feel is right for us, backed up with the facts.

I decided not to ring from conception until DD was 6 months old. At that point I decided to have an occasional glass of wine AFTER her last feed at 9pm. Knowing she would not need feeding again until 2am.

Now she is 15 months old and will sleep 7pm to 7am. I drink moderately at the weekend knowing when she wakes I will have no alcohol in my system.

lol, ring drink. Please excuse my mistake I'm Naking a very wriggly toddler

I've done this calculation before and just checked it again - maybe someone else can confirm or let me know if I have it wrong:

Hale (Medications and mothers Milk textbook) says 'maternal blood alcohol levels must attain 300 mg/dl before significan side effects are reported in the infant'.

Now, that means 300 milligrammes per decilitre, and a decilitre is 100 millilitres.

So it's the same as saying 300 mg per 100 ml.

The drink drive limit in the UK is 80 mg per 100 ml.

So for effects to be seen in the baby, you'd need to be way over the drink drive limit.

300 mg/100 ml is very drunk, espcially if you are not used to drinking - I have checked this on

www.alcohol-aware.org.uk

and they say '300-400 mg % carry a high risk of death in the naïve drinker. This much can be obtained by drinking 150-200g of alcohol, equal to 6-8 pints of strong lager or 2/3 bottle of vodka.'

No one should say people 'should' drink and breastfeed, and obviously, high levels are bad for the mother as well as the baby. But we should be grown up enough to read the facts and then decide. We should also remember that people may be drunk, and not actually look or behave as if they are, and a baby might be very sleepy if he has had an alcoholic drink via the breastmilk....not good.

So if that's right tiktok (which I assume it is, seems to be to me)

6-8 pints of strong lager or 2/3 bottle of vodka, etc works out about 20 units of alcohol (one pint of 5%lager is 2.84 units)

And it leaves at around 1 unit an hour, then if you go out and get completely sloshed, it will take about 20hours before the milk is free of alcohol.

BUT, the alcohol content of the milk will be safer a lot earlier than that.

I think.

If that's right then expressing EBM for a heavy night on the tiles, may be advisable, but moderate drinking wouldn't be a problem.

If for example you fed DC at 9pm and knew that they wouldn't likely wake for a feed before 2am then you could realistically have a good couple of glasses of wine and still have milk with no alcohol in?

Or does it only begin to come out of your system when you stop drinking?

blimey Tiktok you're fantastic! Is it possible to do 'stickies' on this list so we can post some of this useful info at the top so newbies can be directly referred to it?

So really you only need to worry if you are going to an MN meetup

ROTFL laughing at me being able to drink 6-8 pints of strong lager! I was a cheap date when I wasn't pregnant or BF and having abstained considerably (though still had the very odd glass of bubbly while pg) I can get drunk on a bottle of guinness and a sniff of cheap Cava now

And that's really the point isn't it - most of us are sane enough to know our limits and I think we should resist (American-style!?) moralizing about alcohol and women should make their own informed choices. I believe that people who drink too much will drink too much anyway whatever the health advice is.

TBF, when I went out the few times I was BFing, I did drink a lot. I can handle my drink pretty well and although was maybe 'drinkin too much' I certainly didn't want to pass it onto my DS.

Not a popular view on Mumsnet I have notcied.. but I didn't drink at all when bf because I didn't particuarly want my babies to get any alcohol.. just as I didn't want them to breath any cigarette smoke.

But perhaps I'm just odd.

I honestly don't think people should have 'views' positive or negative on this, though, Shiny. You chose an option that felt comfortable for you, and you knew for certain no alcohol (or cigarette smoke) would affect your baby. What is 'getting' people here is when others mothers are told what they 'should' do, when the facts show that no one has any grounds for being directive or judgmental towards others. It ends up with people being told rubbish, such as 'pump and dump' ...by the time you have got this organised, your body will have got more than half way to processing the alcohol anyway.

That's something else about pump and dump I meant to ask actually.
If for example, you have had 20units of alcohol, say 10 hours ago, so still have around ten units in your body, then 'pump and dump' surely the milk you make next would still have the alcohol in it??

I think you must be right TTLIVS since isnt Tiktok's point that boobs don't just store milk like big bottles but are constantly making it using stuff in our blood among other things

Yeah, I think so.
So although, someone may want to have ebm ready if they are expecting a heavy night (the few times I went out, I did enough to take DS up to tea time the following day)
Getting rid of your milk is bloody pointless.

TT see Tiktok's post of 10.20:

"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."

My mother still has the bottles from when we were little (she bf but moved on to mixed feeding/ff in time) and still uses them for measuring. Mine have seen more action that way than any other, certainly.