Alcohol and breastfeeding/expressing

[Essex1512]

Hello, I’m a little confused by the guidelines with regards to alcohol and BF/expressing and was after some help please :)

one drink wait around 2 hours before feeding, but what should you do if you have another one or two drinks in that 1-2 hours? Do you wait another 4 hours so if would be 6 hours in total from that first drink?

I haven’t done this but just wanted to get my head around it! Thank you x

Honestly don't worry about it, just express/feed as normal. The amount of alcohol transferred to the milk after a single drink is absolutely minuscule (if you'd drunk enough to be at the drink driving limit, that would be 80 milligrams per 100ml of blood, ie 0.08g per 100ml). You'd have to be multiple times over the drink driving limit for there to be even 1% alcohol in your breast milk. The main concern around alcohol and feeding is the risk of you falling asleep or otherwise just not being in a position to care for the baby. Some women find certain drinks affect the taste of their milk but this is not universal.

Thank you! It’s a mind field!

Couple of drinks or one or two glasses of wine, you're totally fine, especially if you have some food. The amount of alcohol in your blood / milk will be negligible. You don't need to wait or waste pumped milk.

Don't pump and dump UNLESS you're getting absolutely plastered, in which case pump to relieve engorgement and baby should have previously expressed milk.

By 6 months my baby was going to sleep at 7pm and didn't need a feed until 1 or 2am at the earliest so I could easily drink what I wanted!

Thank you so much :)