Codeine and nursing moms -- rare but dangerous side-effect (death ment'd)

wrote:
Several comments:

They said codiene is most commonly given for episiotomies and
c-sections. I have an idea. Let's quit doing episiotomies and
reduce the c-section rate. The blantent stupidity of the medical
profession at times amazes me. I'm sure the formula companies
will find some way to use it to discourage breastfeeding. Grrrrr!

That jumped out at me too!

The doctor saw the baby at one week of increasing legarthy and
said "let's wait" without any kind of diagnostic. Unwise advice!

This drove me crazy! What was the doctor thinking? After my
c-section I was on some sort of pain killer (not codiene, but one
of the other's they usually give you) and I had a very sleepy baby.
When discussing DD's sleepiness with my father in law,
who is a family practice doc, the first thing he asked was if I
was taking pain killers and then suggested that I stop them if
possible. I stopped them and the pain was managable. DD did
get less sleepy, but that may have been a coincidence, but geez,
it sure should have occured to that doctor that saw this woman!

The whole thing is very sad.

Mary W.

Engram wrote:
Given that I'm going to give birth again in a few months, this is rather
disturbing for me. I needed no pain management with my first and was
disturbingly healthy all through the breastfeeding stage, but you never know
what will happen with the next one...

Well the good thing is there are other over-the-counter type pain
remedies without codeine that can be easily substituted. So no one
should be afraid to get help with pain management, just either skip the
codeine or keep a watchful eye on the baby.

Morphine seems like a scary thing to take with nurslings, especially
two tiny ones!

Elle

My fear is that women who have medically necessary C-sections will be denied
appropriate pain management if they want to breastfeed. If they had told me,
post C-section, that I had a choice of breastfeeding or medication, I'm
sorry, but there would have been no way that I would have been able to go
unmedicated in order to breastfeed. A c-section is major surgery, and, at
least for me, it feels it.

wrote in message
ups.com...
Engram wrote:
Given that I'm going to give birth again in a few months, this is rather
disturbing for me. I needed no pain management with my first and was
disturbingly healthy all through the breastfeeding stage, but you never
know
what will happen with the next one...

Well the good thing is there are other over-the-counter type pain
remedies without codeine that can be easily substituted. So no one
should be afraid to get help with pain management, just either skip the
codeine or keep a watchful eye on the baby.

Morphine seems like a scary thing to take with nurslings, especially
two tiny ones!

Elle
Have you had a C-section? I'm sorry, but tylenol, ibuprophin, or naproxin
simply won't cut it. Not those first few days, anyway. Admittedly, I had a
relatively complicated C-section, so I might not be typical, but if they'd
told me that I was limited to tylenol because I was breastfeeding, I
wouldn't have been able to keep trying to breastfeed. And, as group regulars
know, I've moved heaven and earth to keep giving my daughter breastmilk.

I do think it's reasonable to keep mothers on pain meds in the hospital for
a few days, which lets the baby be more closely monitored as well-and it
would probably be reasonable to do a blood sample and test the baby to see
if the baby is getting too high of levels of pain medication, particularly
if the baby seems overly sleepy or lethargic.

Mary W. writes:

: The doctor saw the baby at one week of increasing legarthy and
: said "let's wait" without any kind of diagnostic. Unwise advice!

: This drove me crazy! What was the doctor thinking? After my
: c-section I was on some sort of pain killer (not codiene, but one
: of the other's they usually give you) and I had a very sleepy baby.
: When discussing DD's sleepiness with my father in law,
: who is a family practice doc, the first thing he asked was if I
: was taking pain killers and then suggested that I stop them if
: possible. I stopped them and the pain was managable. DD did
: get less sleepy, but that may have been a coincidence, but geez,
: it sure should have occured to that doctor that saw this woman!

: The whole thing is very sad.

I still prefer the word inexcusable! (no smiley for obvious reasons)

: Mary W.

Larry

Donna Metler writes:

: My fear is that women who have medically necessary C-sections will be denied
: appropriate pain management if they want to breastfeed. If they had told me,
: post C-section, that I had a choice of breastfeeding or medication, I'm
: sorry, but there would have been no way that I would have been able to go
: unmedicated in order to breastfeed. A c-section is major surgery, and, at
: least for me, it feels it.

That is a valid fear, but there are still more medically unnecessary
c-sections in this country currently than the other way around!

Larry

My fear is that women who have medically necessary C-sections will be
denied
appropriate pain management if they want to breastfeed. If they had told
me,
post C-section, that I had a choice of breastfeeding or medication, I'm
sorry, but there would have been no way that I would have been able to go
unmedicated in order to breastfeed. A c-section is major surgery, and, at
least for me, it feels it.

me too, I've not had a c-section, but I've had much more minor abdominal
surgery and I still needed morphine in recovery (though I know that with
epidurals there shouldn't be such an acute waking up being in pain thing
with a c-section). If it had been the choice between pain killers or
breastfeeding, painkillers would have won that time, as it was I didn't have
to make that choice, just with the timing of the surgery my nursling at the
time managed to go to bed without me and I fed him in the morning.

Anne

Well the good thing is there are other over-the-counter type pain
remedies without codeine that can be easily substituted. So no one
should be afraid to get help with pain management, just either skip the
codeine or keep a watchful eye on the baby.

not really, as far as I recall over the counter is paracetamol, low dose
codeine with paracetamol, ibuprofen, aspirin and combos of the above.
Aspirin is recommended for breastfeeding, ibuprofen acts in quite a
different way, though it probably is a good thing for an episiostomy. Then
you have to include peoples personal ability to take certain drugs,
personally I can't take ibuprofen or aspirin and I don't think that's
particularly uncommon.

Anne

wrote:

Let's see, 150,000 women are given codiene a year and we have one
reported death. Yes, I'd say it is pretty rare.

This is a Canadian figure, and the population of the US is 10X as
great. Plus the rest of the world.

It *is* shocking that they just sent the poor mom and baby home--her
gut was telling her something was wrong and it was. Also I was
surprised she was prescribed so much medication. I had a small tear and
got a five day supply, which was part of their standard take-home
packet (the codeine-laced acetaminophen, some stool softeners and I
think some Advil type stuff).

Weird and tragic.

Engram wrote:

Another disturbing thing is that this reminded me that when my sister gave
birth by cesarian section she was offered morphine for pain management.
Given it transfers to a breastfed child, this is a rather scary practice our
hospitals are employing. Now I'm glad she refused the morphine, given that
she had given birth to tiny premature twins (both under 1kg each)!

Did your sister get anything for the
pain then? (instead of morphine) Also,
what was in her anesthesia? I cannot
imagine any hospital doing a major
abdominal operation without anesthesia...

I got morphine as my spinal, but refused
codeine because I hallucinate on it. I
took Percocet and Vicodin instead.

-- Anita --