Question

Can these medications be used during breastfeeding?

Answer

When breastfeeding mothers take medications, the primary consideration is usually whether the drug affects milk production, rather than its impact on the baby. In fact, many drugs can enter the baby’s body through the mother’s milk, potentially causing harm. Although some drugs may enter the milk in low concentrations, they can still cause serious damage to a delicate infant. Here are some medications that breastfeeding mothers should avoid or discontinue:

  1. Traditional Chinese medicines such as fried wheat germ, Sichuan pepper, and niter, as well as Western medicines like levodopa, ergocalciferol, estrogen, vitamin B6, atropine-like drugs, and diuretics. These drugs may cause lactation to cease in the mother and should not be used lightly during breastfeeding.
  2. Penicillin antibiotics, including penicillin, novobiocin II, novobiocin III, and ampicillin. These drugs rarely enter the milk but may cause allergic reactions in infants in rare cases and should be noted.
  3. Sulfonamide drugs, such as sulfamethoxazole, sulfadiazine, sulfamethizole, sulfaguanidine, probenecid, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (Bactrim), and double sulfonamide tablets. Sulfonamide drugs are weakly acidic and do not easily enter the milk, having no apparent adverse effects on infants. However, due to infants’…