DRUGS used to ease the pain of childbirth could then interfere with breastfeeding.
Siranda Torvaldsen of the University of Sydney, Australia, found that 416 women given the opioid drug fentanyl by epidural injection during delivery were twice as likely to have stopped breastfeeding their baby by the age of six months compared with 312 women who didn’t receive epidural fentanyl (International Breastfeeding Journal, DOI: 10.1186/1746-4358-1-24).
Torvaldsen doesn’t know whether this is because the drug has a direct effect on babies’ ability to suckle or that women who opt for – or need – epidural painkillers are also more likely to stop breastfeeding sooner. A previous…
