Designed
by two moms, Milkscreen works as follows: Saturate the test pad with some
breast milk, wait two minutes, and if the pad changes
color, voila! Alcohol is present in your milk. This
information is supposed to help you decide whether
or not it’s “safe” to nurse after
having had that beer on a hot summer night.
So
what’s the problem?
When
it comes to alcohol, there’s a huge difference
between getting roaring drunk and having an occasional
glass of wine. Milkscreen does not differentiate.
Either there’s alcohol in your milk, or there’s
not. The results are the same whether you had a single
glass of champagne, a full six-pack, or even a dose
of NyQuil.
Experts
agree that drinking alcohol in moderation is not incompatible
with breastfeeding. “Prohibiting alcohol is
another way we make life unnecessarily restrictive
for nursing mothers,” asserts Dr. Jack Newman,
author of numerous books and articles on breastfeeding
and a member of the LLLI Health Advisory Council.
And the more rules associated with breastfeeding,
the less likely they will nurse, adds lactation consultant
Amy Spangler. “Mothers need to trust themselves,”
Spangler says. “They don’t need to test
their milk.”
Women
take plenty of over-the-counter and prescription medication
and continue to safely nurse their children. Even
smokers are encouraged to nurse because in spite of
the presence of nicotine in their milk, their own
milk is still preferable to formula. And why the obsession
of breast milk safety in the first place? As lactation
consultant Linda Smith asserts, “Nobody is marketing
a test for the safety of formula!”
Formula
remains a far more risky choice than good old-fashioned
breast milk. In her fascinating and provocative book,
Having Faith: An Ecologist’s Journey to Motherhood,
biologist Sandra Steingraber presents a frightening
assessment of the degree to which traces of pesticides
and toxic chemicals are found in the breast milk of
women all over the planet. Yet Steingraber remains
a staunch proponent of breastfeeding and indeed nursed
her own children for several years each. Why? Because
formula is still riskier than breast milk, even when
that that milk has traces of alcohol in it. “We
spend an awful lot of time balancing small theoretical
hazards of breast milk against actual hazards of formula,”
asserts lactation consultant Diane Wiessinger.
A
Balanced View
I’m
not trying to be cavalier about alcohol. Excessive
drinking can affect your baby’s ability to nurse
effectively and can inhibit milk production, as well.
But experts agree that drinking in moderation is not
incompatible with breastfeeding. And a little judgment
and common sense are at least as effective as a simplistic
test. Are you drinking on an empty or full stomach?
(Food decreases the absorption of alcohol.) How much
will you be drinking? (The more you feel the affects,
the more your baby will; the more you drink, the longer
it will take for the affects to wear off.) How do
you metabolize alcohol? (Heavier people can metabolize
alcohol more quickly than lighter folks.) Finally,
how old is your baby? )A newborn’s liver is
immature and he will feel the effects of alcohol more
than an older baby.)
The
bottom line? If you drink a lot, don’t nurse.
And seek help. Heavy drinking will affect your mothering
ability in more areas than breastfeeding. But breast
milk is rarely a dangerous substance from which babies
need protection. “If a mother is so drunk that
she’s at risk of dropping the baby,” asserts
lactation consultant Linda Smith, “she needs
help with the baby!”
About
the Author:
Barbara Behrmann, Ph.D. is the author of The Breastfeeding
Café: Mothers Share the Joys, Secrets &
Challenges of Nursing, University of Michigan Press,
2005. She is a freelance writer, a frequent speaker
in the U.S. and Canada, and has appeared on a variety
of television and radio broadcasts. Barbara publishes
a quarterly newsletter available on her website, www.breastfeedingcafe.com
both of which offer information, resources, articles
and products for parents and health care providers
alike. The mother of two formerly breastfed children,
she lives in upstate New York.
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