A new study found many prescription drugs are safe for nursing mothers, contrary to popular belief. This is not the case for psychiatric drugs, herbal treatments, and painkillers.
The American Academy of Pediatrics said many lactating women are often advised not to take certain medicines when breastfeeding, but this is unnecessary, the Wall Street Journal reported.
"Before assuming that you need to stop breast-feeding, there may be information that lets you know whether that really is advisable," primary author Hari Cheryl Sachs, a pediatric and maternal health expert at the Food and Drug Administration, told the Wall Street Journal.
The report said most medicines do not enter breast milk at levels that could have an effect on an infant. Use of "codeine, hydrocodone and oxycodone" is discouraged, along with some antidepressants and treatments to curb alcohol and smoking addicitons.
"This is a long-awaited statement," Ruth Lawrence, a breast-feeding expert at the University of Rochester Medical Center, who was not involved in the study, said. "The tendency among practitioners is to say, 'I don't know the answer, therefore why don't you stop breast-feeding.' There are very few drugs that are contraindicated while breast-feeding."
Very little information was gathered on the use of herbal supplements, but it was warned that St. John's Wort could cause "colic, drowsiness or lethargy in the breastfed infant."
About 80 percent of U.S. women breastfeed after giving birth, after three months the number has dropped to 30 percent. The need to use medications that have been deemed dangerous for breastfeeding mothers is one of the reasons women switch to the bottle.
"The benefits of breastfeeding outweigh the risk of exposure to most therapeutic agents via human milk," the study authors wrote, MedPage Today reported.
Laura Ebertz of Webster, N.Y, told the Wall Street Journal she found the report "reassuring." Ebertz gave birth to her third child on Friday.
"The more information that comes out about it being fairly safe, the better I feel," she said. "It would make me sick not to be on them, which would not be good for the baby."
