Drug Transport Into Milk

Abstract

The advantages of breast-feeding for both mother (maternal-infant bonding, cost savings, reduced risk of premenopausal breast cancer, etc.) and for the infant (bactericidal effects of lysozyme, presence of immunoglobulins, more readily digested, decrease in food allergy, lower incidence of obesity and morbidity, etc.) are compelling and ensure the favorable view of this form of infant nutrition. These benefits of human milk have prompted an increasing number of health care workers to encourage mothers to breast-feed. Often these nursing mothers are also taking medications and raise this issue as a concern. Most medications pose little serious risk to the infant; however, this concern cannot always be addressed with certainty since the extent of passage into milk has not been studied for most drugs. Moreover, their pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic fate in the very young have not been examined.