The medication vs breastfeeding dilemma

The benefits of breastfeeding are well documented. As the proportion of women who initiate and sustain breastfeeding increases, the importance of the safety of drugs passing to babies through their mother's breast milk will increase. All health professionals need to be aware of the importance of considering whether a mother is breastfeeding before recommending medication. Texts with sufficient detail to enable quantitative data to be evaluated on the risk:benefit ratio for individual mother:baby pairs are not currently readily available. The authors conducted research amongst cohorts of 1000 GPs, community pharmacists and mothers in a matched area by postal questionnaire, on the experiences of, and attitudes towards, medication during lactation. This article gives an outline of some of the research results, and examines the expressed needs of the three survey populations.