Does taking Chinese medicine during breastfeeding have any impact on the child?

Many breastfeeding women know that if you take medicine during breastfeeding, the medicine will be passed to the baby through breast milk. Generally, you need to be very cautious when taking medicine during breastfeeding. It is best not to take medicine unless it is necessary. If you really have to take medicine, whether it is Chinese or Western medicine, you need to take it under the guidance of a doctor. If the doctor says that taking medicine does not affect feeding, you can generally continue breastfeeding. However, if the medicine contains antibiotics, feeding should be stopped immediately.

Taking medicine during breastfeeding will have an impact on the baby.

After a mother takes the medicine, the medicine enters the human body, and is either detoxified in the liver or excreted by the kidneys. Some of the medicine will reach the breast milk, and if the baby is breastfed, he will also ingest the medicine. Generally speaking, drugs have little side effects on infants, but some drugs enter breast milk at high concentrations or some infants are very sensitive to the drugs, and the drugs will accumulate in the infant's body. The liver and kidney functions of newborns are not perfect, which can easily cause adverse reactions.

Breast milk is closely related to the health of the baby. Therefore, when breastfeeding women take medication, they should be alert to the adverse effects of certain drugs in breast milk on infants and young children. We should not only consider the toxic and side effects of drugs on nursing mothers, but also pay attention to their harmfulness to infants. We must not take it lightly.

It is generally believed that whether infants are affected by drugs in breast milk is related to the concentration of drugs in breast milk when the mother takes the drugs, the amount of milk the infant drinks, the infant's ability to clear the drugs, and the toxic side effects of the drugs themselves.

Some of the drugs excreted from breast milk that newborns inhale are harmless to the infant, while others are harmful to the infant even though the concentration in breast milk is very low.

What are the effects of taking medicine during breastfeeding on the baby? Antibiotics and sulfonamides

Penicillin, streptomycin, chloramphenicol, erythromycin (intravenous injection), tetracyclines, sulfonamides, etc. should be used with caution by breastfeeding women. Because there are many types of antibiotics and sulfonamides, the routes of administration are different, and their excretion in breast milk varies greatly, so the effects are also different.

If tetracycline is taken orally during breastfeeding, it may affect the development of the baby's bones and teeth after feeding. Taking sulfonamides during breastfeeding can aggravate neonatal jaundice. Taking metronidazole during breastfeeding can cause anorexia and vomiting in infants.

Penicillin and streptomycin can cause allergic reactions in infants and lead to the production of drug-resistant strains. Infants and young children with 6-phosphate glucose dehydrogenase deficiency are abnormally sensitive to chloramphenicol, furans, sulfonamides and other drugs in breast milk. At this time, due to the metabolism disorder of the pentose phosphate pathway of red blood cells in the children's body, hemoglobin denaturation occurs, which can cause hemolytic anemia.

Antithyroid drugs

When nursing mothers use propylthiouracil, propylthiouracil, thiomethazole, etc. for anti-thyroid treatment, the concentration in breast milk can be more than 3 times the concentration in blood, and up to 12 times.

When breast milk containing high concentrations of anti-thyroid drugs enters the body of the infant, it can inhibit the thyroid gland from synthesizing thyroid hormones and may also promote a secondary increase in thyroid hormones. During use, it can cause goiter and hypothyroidism in infants, seriously affecting the normal development of the infant's thyroid gland. In addition, this type of drug can also cause granulocytopenia, rash, jaundice, etc.

Sedatives and addictive analgesics such as morphine

The use of diazepam by nursing mothers may lead to weight loss and hyperbilirubinemia in infants; bromides may cause skin rashes and drowsiness in infants; and when epileptic nursing mothers take phenytoin sodium or phenobarbital, the infant may develop methemoglobinemia and experience drowsiness, collapse, and bruises all over the body. It is particularly noteworthy that addictive analgesics such as morphine can easily enter breast milk and their concentrations can be several times higher than those in plasma.

For infants under 6 months old, it is easy to cause respiratory center depression and may lead to accidents. You should be careful and never give drugs randomly. Related articles: Should you persist in breastfeeding or give up? Uncovering the mystery of breast milk indigestion. The amount of food your baby eats is determined by his or her own situation.

Salicylate drugs

If you take salicylic acid drugs during breastfeeding, your baby may experience drowsiness and rash.

Anticancer drugs

Breastfeeding women with malignant tumors should stop breastfeeding because anticancer drugs will enter the baby's body through breast milk, causing bone marrow suppression and a decrease in white blood cells.