Drinking Alcohol While Your Baby is Breastfeeding

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Are you drinking wine, beer or any other alcoholic drink when your baby is breastfeeding - Is it Safe?

Enjoying the status of mother also calls for the huge responsibility and you have to sacrifice certain things to be a good mother. Mind supports the statement that alcohol is dangerous for health of the mother as well as for the baby dependent on the mother's milk as it gets mix with the breast milk. However, scientifically it is said that one small glass of wine or a small beer is OK on occasions, as it does not create any harmful effects on baby. No matter what the science says, it is quite reasonable and logical to believe that alcohol is dangerous for baby because it passes by the mother's milk.

As per the medical researches, nursing mothers can drink alcohol in moderation. Light drinking of a glass or less a day is fine. What really matters is the amount of alcoholic drinks you consume, if your consumption increases by a glass it may prove to be dangerous for your baby. Following are some precautions you must undertake so that the alcohol will cause minimum effects on your baby:

* Eat something along with your drink.
* Do not feed your child after drinking for at least two to three hours.
* Since alcohol takes two or three hours to metabolize so, it is advisable to feed right before you drink.
* It is good to feed milk in bottle in case your baby gets hungry until you feel comfortable to feed again.

As said earlier consuming alcohol in excess can be harmful for your baby. Some of the effects of alcohol while breast-feeding are:

* The use of alcohol will decrease your milk supply.
* Alcohol disturbs your baby sleep. Therefore, if you drink in an anticipation that your baby will calm down and sleep well, you are wrong.
* As you cannot remove alcohol from your milk by any of the ejection methods like pumping etc therefore less or more it does affect your baby.
* Drinking alcohol while breastfeeding can be harmful for baby's brain development and the baby may start gaining weight at a slower pace.
* The baby may get little amounts of milk due to milk-ejection responses of mother, in an anticipation of keeping the child away from the adverse effects of alcohol.

Moreover, drinking in excessive amounts affects your own behavior and you might lose your senses unable to take proper care of your child whereas motherhood is a responsible job with no excuses. Therefore, you must try to avoid excessive drinking. If you cannot stop yourself from drinking then before drinking find someone responsible to take care of your baby.

Therefore, while deciding about having alcohol when breastfeeding always ask yourself the question "should I?" because if you ask, "Can I?" the answer as per researches is "yes you can, in moderation". Therefore when you ask, "should I" your mind and heart would definitely reply simultaneously "NO" because the reality is that the alcohol goes into your milk and more or less it do affect your baby.

Hey, but who knows, another research may come out in future and suggesting that you should not drink alcohol during breastfeeding (At all).. so if you do drink .. please keep the quantity low.