Is it safe to have someone else breastfeed my baby while I'm away?
This is something I want you to be VERY careful about. If you decide that you have a relationship with another lactating person that is close enough to trust them breastfeeding your child, there are some important considerations to take.
Breast milk is a human bodily fluid, and it can transfer diseases, such as the following:
Medications/chemicals that can be transferred through breastmilk:
Environmental toxins (chemicals the lactating person may be exposed to at work, pesticides, solvents like paints or gasoline, dry cleaning chemicals, etc)
Illegal drugs like heroin, cocaine, misused prescription medications, amphetamines, PCP
Almost all prescription medications pass through breastmilk in at least a small capacity, though many are safe for the child breastfeeding. Nonetheless, there are many very harmful medications that do pass through breastmilk - check out the links below.
Read about medications and breastmilk here.
More info about safe meds and breastmilk
Learn more about milk sharing here.
This is not to say that milk sharing is inherently dangerous, it’s just something I strongly encourage you to be very careful about.
