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No, alcohol ain’t necessarily good for breast-feeding!

Folk wisdom has it that a beer or two before giving suck helps lactation. But recent American research suggests that this just “ain’t necessarily so”. Women in fact produce less milk after a few beers, and they need more time to produce the more or less that they do. So, is beer counterproductive as regards milk?

Many cultures instil the belief that the amount and quality of mother’s milk may be influenced by the state of mind and well-being of the mothers, which involves consumption of beer, wine or fermented fruit juices. Midwives and other healthcare professionals have lauded the benefits of beer-before-breast unto the very gates of Valhalla, because it is generally supposed to have a relaxant effect for the breast-feeding child and, in turn, to stimulate milk-production.

Curious to know more, researcher Mennella and her team (Monell Chemical Senses Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) measured the relative hormonal effect of alcohol consumption in 17 healthy, non-smoking women with children between 2 and 4 months of age. After drinking a glass of orange juice with one alcohol unit, equivalent to one or more glasses of wine, the women used electrical breast pumps to stimulate their milk production. The researchers noted the interval up to emergence of the first drops of mother’s milk and the total yield of breast-milk over a period of 16 minutes.

It is known that, under normal circumstances, the level of the lactogenic hormone (prolactin) and oxytocin hormones is of great importance as regards the production and the free flow of mother’s milk. The oxytocin concentrations increase when baby nuzzles up against mummy’s breast - or when mummy enlists the aid of a breast pump. However, the researchers did also find that alcohol consumption depressed oxytocin levels by 78%, whereas prolactin crested three times the normal. Both hormones - and they normally work in the same direction - are now apparently waving each other good-bye. Women are producing less milk; and such milk as there is might not flow as abundant as formerly …

Mennella rejoinders by saying that mothers are more relaxed after a beer or two, without their necessarily being aware of any untoward hormonal function. “Rather than promoting milk-production, these mothers will produce less milk. And their babies won’t even get to taste the little that is available for all that long”.

The researchers went on to say that even they could not predict the long-term effects of such hormonal derailments as regards the health of the female biological parent. Although they do say, in passing, that alcohol is not stored in the mammary gland. A nursing mother can quite happily give suck two or three hours after a little glass of beer or wine, and her little child will be certainly none the wiser but perhaps all the happier.



Source: Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, April 2005

Link: http://www.beerandhealth.com/index_eng.jsp?Page=Doc2007&Doc=alc_en_lichaam

written by Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, April 2005 on 25.05.2005 um 09:43.

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