I have also heard this admonition about Fentanyl but....I am a little
leary. Fentanyl (along with versed) is commonly used as the med. of
choice for short term anesthesia at the Children's Med. Center where I
worked for many years. It is believed safe for even very young children.
This is because of it's short half life

Of course I don't doubt it effects breastfeeding but....what other drug
would one choose?  Hale says the neonatal half life is 3-13 hours. 13
hours is a long time to deal with the sequelea of a narcotic when a baby
is learning to feed.

The answer, IMHO, is to teach women how to birth without all these drugs
and, until we do, I doubt we are going to prevent this sort of suck
dysfunction. It is probably what keeps a lot of us hospital based LCs in
practice.

I also do Childbirth Ed. and boy is it a struggle to tell women the
truth in these matters. Their OBs get mad about it. They are telling
them "safe, safe, safe" about epidurals.

I guess what I am saying is, this is a much bigger battle than just us
against Fentanyl.

Susan Keith-Hergert RN, MS, CPN, IBCLC

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