BREASTFEEDING AND ALCOHOL
The milk of a breast feeding mother will have the same concentration of alcohol as the alcohol level in her bloodstream. This means that a nursing baby will consume alcohol if mother has. A baby has a very tiny and immature liver that must process the alcohol. It will take the child considerably longer for the alcohol to be metabolized and discharged from his/her body.
Studies show that alcohol can negatively effect a baby’s eating and sleeping:
1. Eating – babies whose mother drank 4 ounces of wine, 1 mixed drink or one can of beer consumed 20% less milk than the babies of the abstaining moms
2. Sleep – babies of the alcohol drinking mothers became drowns and fell asleep more quickly but they slept a shorter amount of time
3. Development – a landmark study of 400 one year old babies showed a significant lag in gross motor development in moderate drinking mothers
While no one knows the true effect that alcohol has on breastfed infants, it appears that abstaining from alcohol would be a wise thing to do.
Information published by La Leche League states:
“Alcohol passes freely into mother’s milk and has been found to peak about 30 to 60 minutes after consumption. It takes a 120 pound woman about 2-3 hours to eliminate from her body the alcohol in one serving of beer or wine – the more alcohol that is consumed the longer it takes for it to be eliminated.”