Any experience of antibiotics reducing milk supply?

[lydiangel83]

Hi my baby is 12 days old I’m first time mum looking for advice / experience please...

I have mastitis and am on strong antibiotics called co-amoxiclav. My milk production has dramatically decreased in the last few days since starting them 3 days ago. I wanted to exclusively breast feed so am wondering whether my supply will increase after antibiotics, and anything I can do in the meantime to help supply for the next 5 days whilst I finish the course?

Any help gratefully received!

When I had DS last year I had to have strong antibiotics (sorry I can’t remember which ones) when he was around 7/8 weeks old due to a bad infection in my CS wound. My supply did exactly the same as your experiencing and after the 4th day I had a phone call with my doctor who told me to pump every couple of hours to help increase supply and if on day 6 there was no change or it decreased even more then it was my bodies way of choosing to help fight the infection over making milk. He said I could keep pumping every couple of hours till a few days after the antibiotics had finished but the chances of it coming back were slim and unfortunately mine dried up pretty quickly

I didn't find antibiotics affected the supply, but mastitis definitely does. It also makes the milk taste salty so your baby doesn't like to drink it so much which can reduce supply. Keep expressing and feeding as much as you possibly can. If you're only at day 12 it may just be that the engorgement of your milk coming in is starting to settle a little. Is LO gaining weight/plenty of wet nappies? If so don't worry too much. Check your latch to try to prevent future mastitis. And get well soon, it is so horrible.

Thanks both appreciate your responses xx

No experience of this, but DS did get thrush in his mouth because of the strong ABs I was taking. Made his mouth hurt and he wanted to feed less. We had to try to get probiotics into him and eventually the GP gave him medication.

Hope you feel better soon.