When Can I Breastfeed After Drinking?

It is better to not drink alcohol if you are a breastfeeding mom! However, if it is in a moderate amount, for a celebration or event, you can ask the question, when can I breastfeed after drinking?

If you are drinking at a standard level, you will be able to breastfeed after 2 to 4 hours of standard drinking. But it’s also important to know what amount of drinking is standard.

Many moms who often drink after childbirth or while nursing follow a calculator to measure the time before they are ready to breastfeed again.

In this article, we have explained how to measure the time before you are ready to breastfeed again after drinking alcohol. Keep reading for a clear answer.

Drinking Alcohol & Breastfeeding: Things You Must Know

Let’s clarify a few things before we get to the ‘when’ and ‘how’ part of this conversation. Drinking during pregnancy is dangerous. Yes, there are safe margins for drinking during pregnancy.

However, it’s probably best to stick to the idea of not during pregnancy and when breastfeeding. You can safely consume alcohol without compromising on both mothering and your life. But a safe plan like that would require you to frame a safe path.

There are medical reasons behind this. Drinking alcohol during pregnancy or after childbirth while breastfeeding can inhibit oxytocin. This can hinder your ability to nurse your child. The effect is often visible when pregnant mothers try to breastfeed after continuous alcohol drinking. They find that their breasts are almost incapable of producing milk at times.

But, as soon as they reduce alcohol intake or stop drinking, they notice a change in how their body produces milk. Some women also feel that breastmilk production has increased once the alcohol level in their blood goes down.

Also, alcohol is a diuretic, which causes dehydration in your body, making it difficult to produce breastmilk while you are nursing. While some advocates of beer support the production of breast milk, there’s basically no theoretical proof backing it up.

How Does Alcohol Get into Breastmilk?

If you are drinking during the period of nursing your newborn, you’ll have the alcohol move back and forth between your blood and breast milk. When the concentration of alcohol in your blood increases, it moves back to breastmilk and comes back to the blood to find an equilibrium.

The level of alcohol in breast milk mirrors the level of alcohol present in the blood. It takes about 30 to 60 minutes for the level of alcohol to increase. However, the level of alcohol increasing in the mother’s body depends on several other factors as well.

For moderate to standard drinking, alcohol is found in breast milk after 2 to 5 hours of drinking. But the time increases with the amount of alcohol you are drinking. If your drinking amount increases, the level of alcohol stays high in your blood and breast milk for around 6 to 8 hours.

Your liver decomposes alcohol once you drink it. Then, the components of alcohol are visible across different parts of your body, including your blood and breast milk. So, if you are thinking of breastfeeding after drinking, then there’s no pump-and-dump method to get the alcohol out of your body.

The new milk your body produces will still have some level of alcohol in it until your body produces more breast milk. So, when can I breastfeed after drinking?

When Can I Breastfeed after Drinking Calculator?

There’s no straightforward answer to this. If you have to go for a rule of thumb, then at least waiting for 2 hours after a standard drink is good enough. But, even after that, there might be some alcohol residue in your blood, keeping the chance of alcohol transmitting to your baby’s body.

There are several factors affecting the level of alcohol in your blood. Whether you are drinking a specific type of drink or drinking in high amounts is also a key deciding factor of the level in your blood and in breast milk.

The standard level of alcohol in the blood is around 14 grams. But it’s no news that different drinks have different levels of alcohol. Regular beer has around 5% of alcohol in them. On the other hand, cordial liquor has around 24% alcohol. If you pour yourself some brandy, it’ll give you around 40% of alcohol.

So, how long do you have to wait after drinking to get ready for breastfeeding again? We have used the standard drinking level as a rule of thumb so you can calculate for yourself how long to wait.

One standard Drink	2 hours
Two standard drinks	4 hours
Three standard drinks	6 hours
Four standard drinks	8 hours

If you drank something with 30 grams of alcohol, you are looking at two standard drinks ( with one standard drink containing 14 grams of alcohol). This means you have to wait for around four hours before you are ready to breastfeed again.

Now, you can calculate the alcohol limit in your blood and wait accordingly. But remember to measure your alcohol while drinking. Unless you have the amount of alcohol you consumed, you won’t be able to measure the specific amount of time you must wait before you can breastfeed again.

When Can I Breastfeed After Drinking Calculator Instructions?

You can use the rule of thumb (or a formula) we have provided above. However, you can find apps and drinking calculators that let you calculate the time to zero. You must put some information like your weight and your body weight to get the approximate time period before you are ready to breastfeed again.

For example, if your weight is around 170 lbs, and if you have consumed two drinks, then you’ll have to weigh for around four hours and 11 minutes.

Click to see how breastfeeding calculator looks like-

How Long Does Alcohol Stay in Breast Milk?

As we said before, the alcohol level in your breast milk mirrors that of the blood. So, if you have drunk some amount of alcohol, it will get transmitted into the breast milk. But how long does alcohol stay in the blood? This time limit also varies from person to person. There are a few key deciding factors for this.

• The amount of alcohol a nursing mother has consumed.
• How quickly have they drank the alcohol?
• Did they consume the alcohol with food?
• Were they on empty stomachs while drinking?
• The weight of the nursing mother and a good understanding of their metabolic system.

But, it can be different from mom to mom. In fact, many women have believed for decades that drinking a small amount of alcohol helps them boost breast milk production. There are several different approaches to drinking alcohol while nursing. Both physiology and biology have different points of view on this matter.

Things to Know About Breastfeeding & Safety

Here are some points to know about breastfeeding safety if you are a nursing mother who also drinks frequently –

• The American Academy of Paediatrics states that moderate alcohol consumption by a breastfeeding mother hasn’t proven to be harmful. Such drinks mean that a drinking mother is drinking around (1 to 2 drinks per week).
• But, if a nursing mother is drinking excessively, it can affect their milk production and is often connected with infant developmental delays.
• Heavy drinkers should wait for a period after starting to avoid drinking. They must wait till alcohol has left their system.
• If you are someone who has a history of chronic drinking, this is the time to seek support for your infant’s sake.

Should you Pump & Dump After Drinking?

Many women often believe that even after waiting for a set period, it’s best to pump and dump to squeeze out the remaining amount of alcohol in breast milk. But squeezing out the breast milk from your breast doesn’t reduce alcohol from your breast milk.

Decreasing the level of alcohol in your breast takes time, just like you must give yourself time to cure a hangover. Once you give yourself time, the alcohol level goes down in your bloodstream and reduces the amount of alcohol in your blood.

So, is it ok to pump and dump after drinking? Well, there are conditions where you don’t need to do that. If you are sober enough to drive on your own, there might not be any more need for pumping and dumping your breast milk. However, if you cannot drive after drinking and if it still hasn’t passed 2 hours or longer, you can pump and dump that breast milk before breastfeeding your child.

This method helps your body more than clearing out the breastmilk that might contain some level of alcohol.  Your body copes with the experience of not breastfeeding your baby once you use the pump and dump your breast milk.

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• 1 Week Pregnancy Discharge: What Color is Your Discharge When You Are Pregnant
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