Hi all,
Re: Radioactive breastmilk.
About 3 yrs ago, I noticed an increase in mothers (from only one OB pracice)
having lung scans ordered to rule out pulmonary embolus whenever there were
complaints of shortness of breath after delivery. Technetium 99 was the
agent commonly used for the scan. The moms were being told they couldn't
breastfeed for 2 weeks. (They COULD hold and bottle feed ABM)
I walked on down to nuclear medicine, found a friendly nuclear med
radiologist and asked him to explain the whole process to me. He was
sympathetic to the nursing moms and showed me the timetable of the life of
Technetium 99. Depending on the the individual and the amount and type of
body mass it could be predicted to be eliminated in 48 to 96 hrs. He
suggested we have the mom's pumped milk brought down to nuclear med. after
48 hrs and the technicians would be more than glad to pass a Geiger counter
over it periodically until it no longer detected radioactivity.  He also
stated that the milk pumped during this time could be stored safely to be
used later after the radioactive material was no longer detected.
I shared this info with the OBs and the OB nursing staff.
Lo and behold! true to his word the technicians in nuc. med. were very happy
to check the milk. The nursing staff found it kind of cool to watch the
Geiger counter stop going "click-click-click". It almost always took 72 hrs
for this to happen. The majority of moms went on back to happily nursing in
approx. 74 hrs. after their OBs said "OK- the milk is obviously clear now".
But nobody was brave enough to use the pumped "formerly radioactive" milk.
The scans were 99.9% negative. The practice stopped ordering lung scans so
frequently.
We all learned something new.

Carrie Edwards (who sends 3 cheers to the "other" Carrie No-Last-Name for
her loving patience)
Caroline Edwards RNC IBCLC
Atlantic City Medical Center-NICU
1925 Pacific Ave.
Atlantic City, NJ
609-441-8186
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