Breast feeding moms are being cautioned to stay away from painkillers to keep their babies safe.  Among some of the painkillers said that need to be avoided when breast feeding are codeine and other opiate pain relievers are also under suspicion.  These are very strong painkillers, and actually are highly addictive as well. 

There was actually a couple of news stories recently on how badly these pain killers have affected society over the past ten years since their popularity peeked.  In Apalachia, painkillers like Oxycontin earned the nickname “hillbilly heroine” because the drug was so chemicallyu similar to the drug, and earned a spot on the black market for people who couldn’t live without the highly addictive pain medication. 

I’ve actually experienced what I think was withdrawal after being on another opiate pain reliever called Vicodin for oral surgery, so I can definitely personally attest to the fact that these opiate classes of pain relievers can be highly addictive, and could most definitely cause harm to a newborn infant whom is ingesting it via their mother’s breast milk. 

If I were a new mom, I’d try to avoid these types of painkillers all together and just take some kind of alternative instead that was not opiate in nature. 

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