Tell me if I'm wrong --  but it's important to keep a sense of proportion
about alcohol.  Ethanol is a small molecule and passes uninhibited through
the placenta, so as far as ethanol's concerned, mom and baby have a joint
circulatory system and the baby in utero is getting the same dose mom is --
but also benefits from her liver's ability to clear it.

With breastfeeding, baby is no longer being pickled in the same brine as
mom, but is having a meal of a volume that's a small fraction of his body
weight and even blood volume.  What might the dilution factor be, even if
milk ethanol percent is the same as mom's blood ethanol percent and we
assume that the ethanol is absorbed instantly from milk?  I found no data on
infant blood ethanol levels in my 2002 edition of Hale's Medications and
Mother's Milk.  Did the AAP or the Dutch Health Council have new data about
how high a breastfed baby's blood alcohol level gets or how long it takes to
decrease after an alcohol-laced feeding?  This is one of those where it
would take moms volunteering their babies for a lot of discomfort. They sure
would have to tolerate a lot of blood draws (would they be allowed to
breastfeed during them -- as recommended in some recent posts?), because I
doubt the blood alcohol levels we're talking about can be effectively
tracked with a breathalyzer...

Ruth Piatak, LLLL
Plano, TX

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