Who should I listen to?

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My shrink tells me not to breastfeed (because of the meds), the WIC (Women, Infants and Children, an organization giving vouchers for food and helping with breastfeeding and other stuff) people including the nutritionist and lactation consultant say I should breastfeed, and my son's pediatrician says there are risks and benefits and she'll let us decide. So who should I listen to?


I'm on Abilify (aripiprazole), Celexa (citalopram) and Risperdal (rispiridone).

I can't decide for you, but here are some articles to help:
http://www.drugs.com/pregnancy/aripiprazole.html
http://www.drugs.com/pregnancy/citalopram.html
http://www.drugs.com/pregnancy/risperidone.html

Those medications are relatively safe. However, Risperdal is associated with pituitary tumors. I would advise that you remove that medication if you wanted to breast feed. Increasing the Abilify dosage should replace the Risperdal.

Edit:
How to reduce medication transfered to baby

When you take your medication, breast feed immediately. Your baby should get your breast milk when there is a low amount of drug in your body. (It takes at least 30 minutes for a pill to absorb into the blood, so that is your time limit.)

http://www.epilepsy.com/info/women_preg ... astfeeding

Last edited by Moop on 19 Dec 2008, 10:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Well, many of these organizations that encourage breast-feeding do so as a generalization. They don't account for situations where the mother's milk didn't come in, or if the mother is on medications that could harm the baby. The most important authorities on your medications are your physician, and your pharmacist. If you wish to breast-feed, you could ask your family doctor about any potential harmless alternatives to your current meds. But if there is a significant reason to believe that your medication could harm your baby, you should take the safe bet and formula feed.

i think it's important that your pediatrician knows what meds you are on- in light of your inquiry about breastfeeding.....if you don't wish to tell the pediatrician, then i suggest you follow your own drs advice & not breastfeed. i bottle-fed all 3 of my children. they have had very few illnesses ( something breastfeeding advocates always said was that breastfeeding would reduce childhood illness ).

Women still breastfeed? The formula is probably better for the kid anyway.

Ana, I took the safe route with both my boys. I'm in a very similiar situation, except we weren't on WIC. I did not breastfeed because the potential risks was not outweighed by the benefits. I, like ster, had two very healthy kids with formula. We only had one ear infection in one kid. They are also very healthy weight. WIC is just trying to save a buck, but they really should be listening to your doctor on this.

Ana, Immelody is right. The stupid little secret about WIC is that they WANT to keep you poor and in need. If they solve the problem, they put themselves out of business, and they are a government agency. So if your kids get sick, etc... THEY benefit.

Tey SHOULD have had you off such drugs when you were pregnant. Hopefully, they did. And I am sure that they have greatly improved formula.

WIC gave us vouchers for Similac, which is good...


I was on nothing for most of the first trimester and then on two drugs at a time, and antidepressant and an antipsychotic, including Haldol, Prozac, Zyprexa, Geodon, Abilify, Celexa and Risperdal.


the pediatrician knows what drugs I'm on. And my shrink took me off the Risperdal yesterday, gave me back the Celexa which I'd been off for 3 weeks, and doubled the Abilify.

I say formula.
I couldn't breastfeed, my baby and I just never "got" how do do it right, he was a month early, my body wasn't ready, and we had to go to formula. He's plenty healthy; he's had one cold, zero ear infections, and he's almost 4.
96th percentile height, 85th weight.

I was so depressed that I couldn't breastfeed, I was really brainwashed into thinking that not breastfeeding was tantamount to child abuse, by the lactation consultants at the hospital, but...
...he turned out fine.

Listen to your paediatrician and doctor, they know more about the drug interactions than the lactation nurses. Simply a matter of more training in that area.

Sorry, but I had to laugh out loud when I read this. You have a toddler of your own, correct? How did you miss it, then? That GIANT campaign to get mother's breastfeeding, that "breast is best," and all that? The formula companies are busy replicating everything that is in breast milk, to the extent that they know it, but new compounds are being discovered on a regular basis, and all of them turn out to have important benefits to the development of the infant.

For situations like Ana's, where there is real concern about giving the baby medications that the baby should not be exposed to, it is a good thing that formula has come so far, and mirrors breast milk as well as possible. But you can NOT say it's better for the child. The research overwhelmingly says the opposite.

Live in 1955 and "formula is best" would certainly be the majority opinion, since all things "modern" were assumed better. But live in 2008 and the science says otherwise.

Ana, listen to those most likely to know whether or not the particular drugs you are taking will cross into the breast milk and affect the baby. It can be a difficult call to make, knowing how to balance it all, but your baby needs a healthy mother first and foremost, and the rest will all be fine.

talk to your pharmisest when you get your prescription. A;so your shrink asuming he or she prescribed your medacation would probblyly know more than your WIC person, who is what a social worker?