Alcohol and Breastfeeding

Effects of alcohol

Levels of alcohol in breast milk remain close to those in the mother’s bloodstream. Levels will be at their highest between 30 and 60 minutes after drinking, or 90 minutes if you’ve been drinking with a meal. It takes two-to-three hours for a unit of alcohol (a small glass of wine, or half a pint of ordinary-strength beer) to leave a nursing mum’s milk.

While large amounts of alcohol in breast milk can have a sedative effect, it’s more likely to make your baby agitated and disrupt sleep patterns. Alcohol inhibits a mother’s let-down (the release of milk to the nipple). Studies have shown that babies take around 20% less milk if there’s alcohol present, so they’ll need to feed more often – although infants have been known to go on ‘nursing strike’, probably because of the altered taste of the milk.

An occasional glass of wine is fine but binge or regular drinking above the recommended daily levels of two to three alcohol units is harmful to mum and baby. It is better not to drink every day but to keep alcohol for social occasions.

It is advised that if you do overdo it at a social occasions, breastfeeding probably isn’t wise. If you feel drunk and particularly if you have drunk enough to vomit, it is better not to breastfeed for 12 hours.

Alcohol is not locked into breast milk, so ‘pumping and dumping’ (expressing and discarding milk) is unnecessary. Mums may need to express milk for comfort if she has been drinking very heavily but as the alcohol level in her own body falls, the level will fall in her milk.