On babies, boobies and booze

C’mon, spill it.

If you were a drinker before you got pregnant, you probably fantasized during pregnancy about a nice glass of Chianti. No amount of alcohol has been proven to be safe to a developing fetus. The fear of a developmentally delayed child with fetal alcohol syndrome is verbally beaten into us all in the books and at the doctor’s office.

And since giving birth, you’ve likely nursed a bottle of beer, which some say stimulates milk production. You gladly proffer your glass as the wine bottle gets passed around.

Whew. Your nine months of teetotalism is over. But should it be?

Social attitudes, scientific research and myths are all over the place.

Among the facts backed up by research: Alcohol can slow the milk-ejection reflex. Babies who taste alcohol in breast milk nurse more eagerly, but for a shorter duration. They make up for that at the next feeding. They tend to sleep more fitfully. Prolonged exposure to alcohol can cause delays in gross motor development.

Everybody seems to know the term “pump and dump.” As if, after a night of overconsumption, you could squeeze every ounce of contaminated milk from your breasts, throw it out and start fresh. That’s not exactly how it works.

You are what you eat, and drink, and alcohol that a mother drinks is secreted into her breast milk. Time is the only way to eliminate alcohol from the body. So the only reason to pump breast milk after drinking would be to relieve engorgement.

I’m the first to admit that I can tend toward excess. As my baby gets older and breast milk is no longer her only source of food, I feel more comfortable carousing on occasion.

I bring up the topic with friends, and they’re nervous. Almost nobody wants to admit to drinking alcohol and breast-feeding. It’s as though they’re afraid the Department of Family Services is going to hijack their Facebook accounts, show up at the door and drag their child away from them.

Technically, Wyoming is one of few states in which a social worker doesn’t have the power to remove a child from her home, according to spokeswoman Juliette Rule. And she doesn’t field many calls regarding boozing and breast-feeding. But more on that later.

I know what you’re thinking. This wino is now going to drum up lots of research to justify her, ahem, “cough medicine.”

The breast-feeding advocacy group La Leche League International, in its book The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, says “when a breast-feeding mother drinks occasionally or limits her consumption to one drink or less per day, the amount of alcohol her baby receives has not been proven to be harmful.”

Dr. Jack Newman, a member of La Leche’s Health Advisory Council, says in the handout “More Breast-feeding Myths” that “reasonable alcohol intake should not be discouraged.”

“As is the case with most drugs, very little alcohol comes out in the milk,” Newman says. “The mother can take some alcohol and continue breast-feeding as she normally does. Prohibiting alcohol is another way we make life unnecessarily restrictive for nursing mothers.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics’ committee on drugs classifies alcohol as one of dozens of “maternal medications usually compatible with breast-feeding.” In their notes, they say large amounts of alcohol can result in “drowsiness, diaphoresis, deep sleep, weakness, decrease in linear growth, abnormal weight gain.”

Of course, metabolizing alcohol is different for everyone, based on weight, alcohol and food intake and your body’s individual makeup.

Even the experts choose their words carefully. Nobody wants to be the person who seems to condone behavior that could harm a child.

Pediatrician Dr. Jim Little says that “moderation in everything is reasonable,” and an “occasional” drink isn’t likely to bother a breast-feeding child, but drinking often leads to bad judgement.

“Moms who drink are thinking about other things than their kids,” Little said. “They don’t pay attention sometimes.”

Teton County lactation consultant Janet Wood said making blanket statements is dangerous, because one person might consider a single drink “moderate drinking,” and another might think that means a six-pack. She suggests pumping breast milk ahead of time if there’s a special occasion on your calendar.

“If you have a couple drinks, you might feel a little happy, there will be a little alcohol in your breast milk,” Wood said. “If the party goes late, you have quite a few more drinks and end up prancing around your friend’s living room wearing nothing but a bearskin rug, there will be a lot of alcohol in the breast milk.”

Overindulging on occasion happens, Wood said, and when the effects of alcohol have worn off, “it’s fine to nurse again.”

For the paranoid or overly scientific moms, a company has created a home test, Milkscreen. Squeeze a couple of drops of breast milk onto the test strip, and if its alcohol content is above 0.02 percent, it will change color. The company advises finding an alternate source of food for the baby, waiting a while and trying again.

Carolyn Smith Fernald, a former Jackson resident, said she pumped “for two months” to ensure enough milk to last 10-week-old Fox while she “went out and really cut loose” for her bachelorette party. At 6 a.m. the next day, the milk ran out and she had to nurse the baby.

“I don’t know if he was just giving me a break because it was my first hangover in a year, or if there was still alcohol in my milk six hours after my last drink,” Fernald says, “but Fox slept the rest of the day. And for the record, I felt really guilty.”

Guilt is one burden that a new mother doesn’t need, in my opinion. I agree with Fernald that “the health and emotional benefits Fox received from nursing for 22 months far outweighed any negative impacts he had from the few times (yes, it happened more than once!) that I found myself ‘nursing under the influence.’”

Rule, spokeswoman for the Wyoming DFS, said her organization doesn’t seek “perfect parenting.”

“That’s not the standard,” Rule said. “It’s fine enough parenting. We’re not actively policing parking lots of bars looking for parents who are doing wrong. We have whole communities’ eyes and ears doing that.”

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After a lovely Christmas party on Saturday, features editor Johanna Love is swearing off alcohol. At least until Friday.