MCH Section member Melissa Bartick, co-author of the Call to Action on Breastfeeding (see article above on the Breastfeeding Committee), and her colleague, Monica Akus, recently published this article in the September issue of the Annals of Pharmacotherapy.
Their article found that discontinuation of breastfeeding is linked with an increased risk of acute and chronic diseases in children, as well as increased risk of maternal disease. Mothers and physicians often depend on pharmacists for accurate drug information, but their information is only as good as the sources available to them.
The objective of the study was to determine the reliability of safety recommendations for drugs used during lactation, based on current research and information, and determine whether resources may be inappropriately advising the interruption of breastfeeding. A comparison of 10 frequently used sources for information on medication used during breastfeeding was done for 14 commonly used drugs. Sources included the databases used by two retail pharmacy chains, available text references and electronic references.
The authors assessed the number of drugs thought to be safe in breastfeeding for each source. The drugs reviewed included those widely accepted as safe, widely regarded as not safe and drugs that fit into neither category. They found that many sources did consider the most recent research. For drugs thought to be unequivocally safe, the two retail pharmacy databases gave an alternative recommendation at least 75 percent of the time.
The authors concluded that if health care practitioners are using outdated sources for making safety recommendations to their patients, such a practice may result in many women being inappropriately advised to stop breastfeeding, thus increasing the potential health risks to them and their infants. As the most accessible medication expert, the pharmacist needs to be well educated and continually updated using the most reliable resources for lactation recommendations.
To read the full article, see Ann Pharmacother 2007;41, published online, July 10, 2007, www.theannals.com, DOI 10.1345/aph.1K052.