Pills & Chews & Drops, Oh My!

If there is anything going on in our house that's more complicated than feeding the cutiebug it has to be the management of medication, supplements, vitamins, and lactogenic food intake.

As if navigating the maze of medication safety wasn't unnerving enough, as nursing mothers we have to continue to evaluate everything we consume for the duration of our breastfeeding relationship... and not just from the perspective of safety!  You have to be careful that the pills you pop won't impact your nursling, but perhaps just as frightening for some of us is how these medications (or supplements, or foods) will effect our milk supply.

Enter stage left: Dr. Hale's book "Medications and Mother's Milk" and KellyMom.com, both of which have excellent information on which medications are safe to take while breastfeeding your little ones.  Of course when I found myself at urgent care last weekend, dealing with a fresh second degree burn I got while cooking in my fourth month of sleep deprevation, I didn't have the book handy and there wasn't much information on burns at the KellyMom site. 

That's how I found this new resource: LactMed, an online Drug and Lactation Database. I vaguely remembered a Lactation Consultant mentioning it, and from their home screen I could search for the medication and pull up information on the drug, how it impacts the baby, and this is exciting how it impacts lactation

Oh - and in case you are interested in the lactogenic foods, that will be my next post.  In the meantime here is an awesome resource: http://lactogenicdiet.blogspot.com