During breastfeeding, a woman may experience an increase in body temperature for various reasons. Sometimes this reaction is associated with an inflammatory process in the breast (mastitis) or milk stagnation (lactostasis).
How does the temperature during lactation affect the feeding regimen of the baby, and is it possible to beat her medicamentally?
What to do when the temperature rises during lactation? Is it possible to take antipyretic or is it better to suffer? Will the usual “acetyl”?
In addition to worries about his own well-being, anxiety about the health of the baby is growing. How does temperature affect mother’s milk? Should I temporarily stop feeding a baby?
Such anxieties, of course, are not without grounds and require clarification on each of the points. However, you need to start with another.
Breastfeeding temperature is not a disease, but a symptom. And if the thermometer “rolls over”, then this may indicate at least three unpleasant processes in the body of a nursing woman:
- acute respiratory infection;
- inflammation of the mammary gland (mastitis) or stagnation of the secret (lactostasis);
- poisoning, intestinal infection.
Drugs for temperature during lactation: can or cannot
It is important not just to figure out how to bring down the temperature during lactation, but to eliminate the cause of its occurrence. Therefore, the pills can not do, you may even need a whole range of drugs.
But it can be adapted for breastfeeding.
The mother should immediately inform the attending specialist that she wants to continue to feed the child during her treatment. Then the doctor will help pick up antipyretic and other drugs allowed for use during lactation.
This means that they are safe for the crumbs, and there is no need to interrupt the natural feeding.
Many sick mothers are afraid to take medication during breastfeeding. Indeed, in the instructions one often encounters a warning that during the period of treatment it is necessary to stop feeding the infant.
But the prescribed drug can always be checked. There are several reputable expert sources that allow you to evaluate the better to bring down the temperature of a nursing mother.
Below is a list of them.
- WHO Handbook. Dated 2002 year. Dedicated to the compatibility of lactation and drugs.
- Directory site “E-lactation”. Created with the assistance of the Spanish organization to support breastfeeding.
- Books reference. You can use the works of foreign and domestic authorship. For example, the works of T. Hale or A. Zaitsev and O. Karpov.
According to the above sources, the body temperature of a nursing mother can be normalized using Paracetamol or Ibuprofen. It is possible that your doctor will recommend them, denoting the dosage and the allowable time interval for medications.
But these drugs must be pure. Their combinations, for example, in powder-like Coldrex variants are unsafe during the period of infant feeding.
And also the doctor will advise how they can be alternated, if the temperature does not immediately fall.
The first drug is an integral part of even childhood antipyretic drugs. And although it penetrates into breast milk, but in small quantities, such a dose is not dangerous for a baby.
The second drug also does not harm the baby and practically does not get into the milk.
But traditional anti-fire acetylsalicylic acid is not very safe. In the “E-lactation” directory it has the first degree of risk. Significant doses of the drug may be harmful to the infant.
Therefore, it makes sense to replace the usual “Aspirin” with similar, but absolutely harmless means.
If a nursing mother has a fever, but she feels strong enough to continue breastfeeding, she can do that. The temperature itself does not affect the lactation process.
On the contrary, together with milk, the child receives antibodies to the causative agent of the mother’s disease. It trains and strengthens its immunity.
The increase in temperature during breastfeeding does not affect the taste or quality of milk. If the mother observes the previous rhythms of feeding, the volume of milk normally does not change either.
After all, its development depends on the frequency of attachments.
Sometimes you can find reviews of mothers who, during their illness, take the deterioration of milk outflow for its disappearance. After all, if earlier the fluid was actively excreted and beat in several streams, then with the disease the flow may become less pronounced. This effect is not associated with the temperature itself, but with the state of the mother.
In conditions of illness, stress and unimportant state of health, it is difficult for a woman to relax and enjoy the feeding process.
In such circumstances, the hormone oxytocin is produced worse. He is responsible for the active release of secretions from the mammary glands. Between themselves, mothers call it “tide”.
Therefore, the greater the stress, the worse the milk can separate. From the side it may indeed seem that the milk is gone.
But it is not.
However, some mothers still notice the unpleasant effects of malaise and temperature during breastfeeding. The volume of milk produced can actually decrease if a woman becomes less likely to put her baby on her breast during a period of poor health.
Or completely stopped feeding for a while.
How to feed your baby during treatment with “heavy” drugs
If the doctor offers to reduce the temperature during breastfeeding with drugs that cause concern, you can always look for analogues with a safer status. But sometimes it is really necessary to take means that are completely or partially incompatible with natural feeding.
In such a situation, a woman and her doctor are faced with several alternatives to organizing a further feeding regime.
- Wean the infant from the breast for the duration of the treatment. Feeding will resume only after the complete abolition of the drug. At the same time, it is important to observe the period of withdrawal from the woman’s body
- Replace multiple feedings. It is advisable to temporarily remove the attachments that go after taking the drug. Indeed, at this time its content in the blood is the highest. You can replace breastfeeding, for example, expressed milk or adapted milk formula.
- Collapse lactation. Mom finally completes the feeding of the child.
Taking the prescribed febrifuge during breastfeeding, do not forget about the organization of a comfortable mode of the day. The action of drugs will give a more noticeable effect if the mother does not suffer the disease “on her feet.”
The woman is shown complete rest, plenty of warm drinks, fresh air and the easiest food.
