Hale's Medications and Mothers' Milk 2008 ed. says, "Azithromycin is 
concentrated for long periods in phagocytes, which are known to be 
present in human milk."  That seems to indicate that any remaining 
medication in the mother's system *is* going to be present in the 
milk.  Apparently there is not enough data for Hale to calculate the 
milk:plasma ratio though (that part is blank).

There is really no way to know exactly how sensitive the baby is, nor 
whether the mother metabolizes this medication slowly or quickly.

They could wait for what ought to be a safe amount of time, keep 
infant benadryl handy when they attempt the first nursing, and watch 
carefully for any sign of new hives.

I faced a similar situation when my then-9 month old had an 
anaphylactic reaction to a food that I ate.  We were given the 
guideline of 36 hours for the offending food to clear out of my milk. 
We tried nursing at 33 hours (the not-nursing was SO hard!  I can't 
imagine 10-12 days) and hives appeared.  A tiny dose of benadryl took 
care of that.  Thank goodness, when we tried again at 36 hours, there 
were no more symptoms.

Margaret
mom of 3, LLLL, IBCLC
Longmont, CO



At 8:30 PM -0500 2/18/09, Laura Block wrote:
>So the unanswered question
>is, if we have a Zithromax-allergic baby, when will there be NO
>Zithromax in the milk, if it's mostly sequestered in the tissue and kept
>out of the blood stream? And is the breast one of those tissues where it
>might "loiter?" I don't think we can answer that question right now.
>

             ***********************************************

Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html
To reach list owners: [log in to unmask]
Mail all list management commands to: [log in to unmask]
COMMANDS:
1. To temporarily stop your subscription write in the body of an email: set lactnet nomail
2. To start it again: set lactnet mail
3. To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
4. To get a comprehensive list of rules and directions: get lactnet welcome