While avoiding medications when pregnant or breastfeeding is desirable, it is often not possible due to conditions such as asthma, epilepsy, or high blood pressure. Failure to treat such a condition may affect the health of both the mother and her infant.
Unfortunately for me, I have asthma, seasonal allergies, and severe food allergies. While I can “rough it” by eliminating my allergy medication in certain seasons (even though it is technically safe), I cannot chose to ignore anaphylactic shock after eating something cross-contaminated with peanuts. I have to take a Benadryl (or in worse cases, my Epi-Pen). Without it, I will eventually be hospitalized or dead. Now, I should say this. When pregnant especially, I am extremely careful about what I eat. Epinephrine crosses the placenta and may lead to a decrease in uterine blood flow, not to mention that congenital defects are associated with first trimester exposure. (source) Obviously, using my Epi-Pen is not desirable.
If you’re like me, you want to know what is absolutely fine, what is safe if you really need it, and what you have to stay away from no matter what. Well, here you go…The following are resources put forth by health professionals. Just be sure to access the correct list — what may be okay in nursing may not be true for pregnancy.
* The Safe Fetus website is database of worldwide medications (generic & trade) that provides information on the drugs’ indications, fetal risk, breastfeeding risk, and risk during pregnancy, according to the FDA.
SafeFetus
* The American Academy of Pediatrics maintains a list of drugs that are transferred into breastmilk.
AAP list
* FAQs on medication use during pregnancy and breastfeeding from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
CDC FAQs
* Dr. Sears’ answers on taking medication while breastfeeding
Dr. Sears
* Drug and breastmilk interaction chart from Babycenter
Babycenter chart
* La Leche Leagure article titled “Medications and Breastfeeding”
LLLI article 1
* La Leche League article titled “Maternal Medications and Breastfeeding”
LLLI article 2
