Medication and breastfeeding: Compatibility and concerns

The percentage of breastfeeding women has increased within the last few years, particularly in the developed countries, due to the better awareness of the beneficial effects of breastfeeding on both the mother and the infant. Human breast milk is the optimum source of nutrition during the first six months of life with several health and social benefits. Breastfeeding benefits the new mother, the newborn and the community in general and it has been associated with improved mother-infant bonding. However, due to the existence of chronic or acute health problems in many new mothers who wish to breastfeed, appropriate treatment should be considered carefully. The fact that some medicines have shown side effects during pregnancy or are embryotoxic does not necessarily mean that they will be harmful during breastfeeding. Therefore, drug administration should be considered separately for pregnancy or breastfeeding and drugs should be categorized according to their compatibility. Information on drugs transfer into the breast milk is essential to protect the infant from undesirable adverse effects of maternal consumption of drugs and to allow effective pharmacological treatment of breastfeeding mothers. The most important reason for the detection of drugs in breast milk is for evaluating the risk of drug exposure through breast milk for the infant.