It is apparently impossible to know exactly how much of the chemicals that a woman takes will pass through her breast milk into her infant. This is because each woman is different, and while a level of medicine may be deemed allowable for most babies, it may hurt or kill others.
Some women are “ultra-rapid metabolizers of morphine” and there is no test to determine whether that will be true of a woman or not. The news gets worse, when you realize that Tylenol-3, that is Tylenol with codeine, is routinely prescribed for women who have just given birth. It is a stronger dose than regular Tylenol because of the pain that some women have from their episiotomies or C-sections or other difficulties. The codeine turns into morphine inside of the woman’s body, and in some women, it passes through the breast milk and harms the baby.
Two cases were in the news about this. A medical report told of a case in 2006 where a 13-day-old breast-fed baby died from a morphine overdose. The mother had been taking less than the usual dosage of codeine that was considered normal for her episiotomy pain. But since it turned out that she was an “ultra-rapid metabolizer,” her baby died from the lethal amount that came through to her.
Even worse, a six-week-old baby girl named Alexis died from the lethal amount that came to her from her mother’s breast milk several months ago. This week, the mother, Stephanie Greene, was charged with homicide by child abuse. Investigators looked into the situation for seven months, and discovered that Stephanie Greene had used pills and patches, and obtained the drugs illegally on at least 38 occasions from a pharmacy, taking them constantly after Alexis was born. She was also charged with violating drug distribution laws.
In this case, she was at fault, but is it possible that she did not realize that so much of the drug was seeping into her baby’s system? Even a spokesperson for an organization that encourages breast-feeding was quoted as saying most drugs are unlikely to pass into breast milk, and so it is 'nearly impossible' for a baby to receive a lethal dose.
These are heart-breaking stories and there are grieving families out there right now, at least one of whom didn’t know she was doing anything harmful. The take-away message here is this: don’t take Tylenol-3 or anything else with codeine in it when you are breastfeeding your baby. It’s not worth the risk.
