If you nurse your baby soon afterwards, your baby would ingest only about 32 milligrams of alcohol. Let’s say you drink a couple of glasses of wine, the equivalent of 2 standard drinks or about 24 grams of pure alcohol. In short, (2) the amount of alcohol in breast milk is extremely small, even at peak concentration 30-60 minutes after drinking. (A standard drink equals 5 oz of wine, 12 oz of beer or wine coolers, or 1 oz of hard alcohol). By comparison, hard alcohol like whisky or vodka contains 20-40% alcohol, wine 12-15%, and beer 4-8%. In other words, if you tested at the blood alcohol driving limit of 0.08%, your milk would contain about 0.08% alcohol. Instead (1) your milk contains the about the same percentage alcohol as your blood does after you have a drink. Okay, mamas, let’s cut through this self-contradictory muddle and talk facts.įor starters–sorry Babycenter–but the amount of alcohol that makes it into your bloodstream is NOT the same amount as in your milk. The same amount of alcohol that makes it into your bloodstream makes it into your breast milk.” Or perhaps it depends on how often you have a drink? Would having a regular glass of wine with dinner exceed some unstated limit?īabycenter makes the case against drinking while nursing sound even more dire: “Will it harm my breastfeeding baby if I drink wine, beer, or hard alcohol? It could if you don’t take precautions. Nursing should take place 2 hours or longer after the alcohol intake to minimize its concentration in the ingested milk,” and that “many experts recommend against drinking more than 1-2 drinks per week.”Ĭonfusing, right? Is 1-2 drinks harmful to your baby, or not? Is it drinking this much only safe if you wait to nurse? drink alcohol while breastfeeding, many of us are foggy on how this does (or does not) affect our babies.Ĭan you drink a glass of wine while breastfeeding your baby? Or do you need you wait 2-3 hours for the alcohol to clear? And exactly how much alcohol is too much alcohol to nurse?ĭoctors and trusted sources like KellyMom and Babycenter give wildly conflicting advice on these points.įor example, KellyMom, one of my favorite go-to sites for breastfeeding information, states that “in general, if you are sober enough to drive, you are sober enough to nurse.”īut then they go on to say the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Breastfeeding advises “ingestion of alcoholic beverages should be minimized and limited to an occasional intake but no more than 0.5 g alcohol per kg body weight, which for a 60 kg mother is approximately 2 oz liquor, 8 oz wine, or 2 beers.