If you don’t have another drink, the concentration gradually falls and a couple of hours after having a single drink the alcohol will have mostly left your breast milk.Īlcohol is not stored in the breast so as your liver metabolises the alcohol causing your blood alcohol level to drop, so does the alcohol level in your breastmilk. Alcohol is one of the most readily absorbed drugs known and alcohol does pass from your bloodstream into your milk.Īlcohol levels reach their highest in breast milk about 30-60 minutes after drinking or after 30-90 minutes if you have had something to eat while you are drinking. Still, we do not know the exact way that alcohol consumption can affect babies’ and what the safe consumption amounts are. Roughly 34-million women of childbearing age drink alcoholic beverages (approximately half of all lactating women in Western countries consume alcohol while breastfeeding), so, it is understandable that it has been the subject of a lot of research. However, opinions vary over the amount of alcohol that is safe for a breastfeeding mother to drink.
Most health care professionals agree that drinking small amounts of alcohol while breastfeeding won’t hurt your baby. But now that you are breastfeeding is it actually safe to enjoy that alcoholic beverage or will the effects of the alcohol be harmful to your baby?
