Dr. Jack wrote: Date: Sun, 27 Apr 1997 08:13:28 -0500 From: Jack Newman <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Alcohol and breastfeeding MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit God spare us from the new puritanism. If the mother wants to have champagne, she should have champagne and not "pump and dump". (When will we stop using that odious expression?). She should breastfeed her baby so that the salubrious mental effects of that wonderful liquid nurtured on the limestone slopes of north-eastern France are not disrupted by a physical relationship with a breast pump. If alcohol is so dangerous in the tiny quantities it is present in the milk, even after a bit of binge, then no one should be drinking it, not fathers either. Alcohol has a milk plasma ratio of 1. Wine, champagne are about 12% alcohol. But the governments in most jurisdictions consider you too drunk to drive if you have 0.08% in your blood. Thus, a woman too drunk to drive will have 0.08% alcohol in her blood, and in her milk. The effect of this is what exactly? The alcohol does not stay in the milk, if, say the baby sleeps through the night. When the blood levels drop in the blood, the alcohol in the milk will diffuse back into the blood and also be metabolized. Jack Newman, MD, FRCPC My response is; If a woman is too drunk to legally drive she is probably too drunk to operate a breast pump. Would this constitute a PUI? ( Pumping under the influence) Mary Graden