Community | July 06, 2009 | 38 comments

Should breast-feeding while drunk be a crime?

source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31766366/ns/health-kids_and_parenting/

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AwesomeJosh
Police responding to a domestic disturbance arrived at Stacey Anvarinia's home to find the mother breast-feeding her 6-week-old baby in front of them. And she was drunk, they said.

Officers arrested the woman, who later pleaded guilty to child neglect and faces up to five years in prison. Now her case has touched off a debate among moms about breast-feeding, alcohol — and privacy.

Since Anvarinia's arrest, blogs have been abuzz with comments questioning whether breast-feeding mothers could risk criminal charges if they drink even modest amounts. Authorities insist police were right to make the arrest, even if the mother had not been breast-feeding, out of concern for the child's welfare.

"Since when is breast-feeding while drunk a crime?" said Dr. Amy Tuteur, a retired obstetrician and gynecologist in Boston who has been following the case on her Web site, the Skeptical OB.

If the 26-year-old woman had been bottle-feeding her baby, "no one would have bothered to check what was in the bottle," Tuteur said. "You can do a lot more damage by mixing formula wrong."

Medical research on alcohol and breast-feeding is murky, mainly because the issue is difficult to study. Researchers cannot ethically conduct controlled research on intoxicated women who breast-feed. So doctors rely on anecdotal evidence.

The breast-feeding advocacy group La Leche League International advises women to nurse their children only when "completely sober."

In published advice to mothers, the group says: "Drinking to the point of intoxication, or binge drinking, by breast-feeding mothers has not been adequately studied. Since all of the risks are not understood, drinking to the point of intoxication is not advised."

The American Academy of Pediatrics says excessive alcohol consumption by a breast-feeding mother can lead to drowsiness, deep sleep, weakness and abnormal weight gain in an infant.

Dr. Lori Feldman-Winter, who helps oversee breast-feeding policy for the American Academy of Pediatrics, said the group considers limited alcohol consumption compatible with breast-feeding.

"A mother who becomes intoxicated should not breast-feed," said Winter, who also heads the division of adolescent medicine at Cooper University Hospital in Camden, N.J. "After drinking one glass of wine, a woman should abstain from breast-feeding for two to three hours."

La Leche, which knew of no similar cases to Anvarinia's, says the effect on a baby is directly related to how much the mother drinks.

In general, "Feed the baby first, and then wait until it leaves your bloodstream," McCallister said.

The group says it takes up to three hours for one serving of beer or wine to be eliminated from the body of a 120-pound woman.

Melissa Peat, a mother of three in Topeka, Kan., said she has had an "occasional beer or glass of wine" while breast-feeding. Peat said the topic of alcohol and breast milk comes up in conversations with other mothers.

"The conventional wisdom among breast-feeding mothers is that alcohol, coffee, spicy food — everything in moderation is acceptable for the breast-feeding mom," said Peat, 32, a former high school math and science teacher who now is a stay-at-home mom.

Arrests involving intoxicated breast-feeding mothers have been difficult to prosecute.

The city of Bethel, Alaska, paid two women $2,500 apiece in 1992 to settle a lawsuit they filed over their arrest on charges of endangering their children by drinking alcohol before breast-feeding. The women had been charged with misdemeanor reckless endangerment in 1990, but prosecutors later dropped the charges, saying no crime had been committed.

It's unclear how much Anavarina had to drink. Police never conducted a blood-alcohol test. Investigators believed she was drunk, and her arrest on a charge of child abuse and neglect did not require a test...
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38 comments // Should breast-feeding while drunk be a crime?

  • gen468
    • 0
      gen468  

    • NO

      A woman should be able to kill her babies, give them drugs or drunk titties .
      its her body she can do what ever she wants.

    • 2 years ago
  • jeckersly316
  • stevieuk
  • DeliaTheArtist
    • 0
      DeliaTheArtist  

    • Can I just ask why the hell you'd want to be drunk when you are still breast feeding and have to take care of a 6 week old? I mean really, you can't stay off the bottle for a few years? Not even 2 MONTHS after having the baby you are getting drunk again?

      Not only do I think the breast milk might be an issue, but who wants drunks taking care of babies that are barely over a month? PARENTAL FAIL!

    • 2 years ago
  • theultimateend
  • jeckersly316
  • bailey78
  • sickinjersey
    • 0
      sickinjersey  

    • "This case is more than just the breast-feeding. It was the totality of the circumstances," said Grand Forks Police Lt. Rahn Farder. "It is quite unusual for a mother to be breast-feeding her child as we are conducting an investigation, whether she was intoxicated or not."

      MORALITY AND LAW SHOULD NOT BE THE POINT.

    • 2 years ago
  • sickinjersey
    • 0
      sickinjersey  

    • is this about alcohol or breast feeding? because it sounds a little like people are only talking about being drunk.This seems to be a morality issue if the science is not there.

    • 2 years ago
  • royulery
    • 0
      royulery  

    • has anyone tested the milk of a drunk woman? there must be protection built into the system because history would have given us wives tales. most of mankind has only had alcoholic beverages, as water was dangerous.
      the pyramids were built with beer as the only drink, albeit life expectancy was 30.

    • 2 years ago
  • kewal91
    • 0
      kewal91  

    • I can see being drunk and handling a baby in general harmfull.. i mean a baby... is like water balloon on steroids... i mean people kill babies being compeletely sober by sleeping on them.. (they try to sleep with them)

    • 2 years ago
  • angbro
    • 0
      angbro  

    • if this woman is being charged with a crime for breastfeeding while drinking booze then all the breastfeeding women chug-a-lugging diet coke all day should also be charged with the same crime. caffeine is a "drug".

    • 2 years ago
  • thefatbear
    • 0
      thefatbear  

    • Oh yes, it should be illegal to breast feed your baby drunk. Just as it should be illegal to allow them to breath the toxic air, drink the toxic water out of the tap, eat the toxic foods from our supermarkets, and think toxic thoughts. Basically, anything that has not been ordained by myself as supreme ruler should be outlawed.

      People can't think or do for themselves, you know (you need free will for that), so government should step in to build a Utopian society for us to ensure we don't hurt ourselves from being too stupid or careless. They're doing such a fantastic job with everything else, I can't wait until they come into my home to make sure I'm living it up to their standards.

      Seriously, this mother should've put down the dangerous booze and picked up something completely safe like Splenda. Make baby strong like bull.

    • 2 years ago
  • islek
    • 0
      islek  
    • thefatbear:

      It's sort of sad how most people don't even know what additives are in the foods they eat. I say "sort of" because some folks want to be healthy but don't make the effort to know what they are actually ingesting... or giving to their children. Like you said, they want someone else to take care of it for them. But a majority of companies do not have consumers' best interest as a top priority. So people need to know they are on their own with that.

      Regarding the subject of this post, I am going to go the cynical route and say that if there needs to be a law for a person to determine what is or is not good for their child... Well, perhaps it means they are lacking in common sense.

    • 2 years ago
  • ks_kickapoo_woman
    • 0
      ks_kickapoo_woman  

    • ok then .... how about the ability to care for baby while buzzed ... I'm just sayin that if you bring a life in this f***ed up world, do everything that you can to have a healthy human to watch grow and make you grandbabies ... luv life

    • 2 years ago
  • charfman
  • isnamthere
  • Kallison
    • 0
      Kallison  

    • I breast fed after having a c-section. They had me doped up on all sorts of drugs because the pain was not controlled with the low level opioids/NSAIDs. My baby was not sleepier than other babies and I noticed no difference when I no longer took the meds. You have to understand, when you ingest something orally, before it even enters the general blood stream, the alcohol/drugs go to the liver where a certain percent "scrubbed" from the blood. This is called the first pass effect. Then, the rest of the alcohol/drug is being used by the mom's body. So how much actually reaches the milk? How long does it take to get there?
      Here is a Chinese study.
      http://www.journals.elsevierhealth.com/periodicals/alc/article/PIIS0741832906000...
      If you think about it, if the breasts are full of milk (ie already produced, just waiting in the tissue), a mother that is drinking a beer while breast feeding is probably not giving the baby much of anything in the way of alcohol: the milk that the baby is drinking was made in the previous couple of hours, Ideally, she would do the "pump and dump" method later in the night; Empty the breasts prior to drinking, then drink, then pump the new "tainted" milk out. However, the study cited above showed very little alcohol entering the milk.

    • 2 years ago
  • sk0j0
    • 0
      sk0j0  

    • My best friend breastfeeds her 3 month old. It's not that hard to pump and store if you plan on drinking. If she plans on only have one or two she just makes sure there's a couple hours inbetween the drinks and the feeding time and that works out fine! On the other hand feeding while completely intoxicated? Not good.

    • 2 years ago
  • ks_kickapoo_woman
    • 0
      ks_kickapoo_woman  

    • I breast fed all 4 of my babies, and I had to watch what I ate because not only does the nutriunts go to the milk ( ie. alchohol) but so does the flavor .... I couldn't eat onions or garlic ... my fav's ...

    • 2 years ago
  • briuh_
  • jankmatank
    • 0
      jankmatank  

    • I saw a woman drinking a beer while breastfeeding her baby at the restaurant I work at. It looked so wrong and really made her seem like a bad mother. Especially when she ordered a second one. I even asked my boss if that was illegal and if I should serve her another. Neither of us had heard of it as being illegal, so she drank another beer while breastfeeding... I think it should be illegal.

    • 2 years ago
  • jeckersly316
  • ks_kickapoo_woman
  • bombastinator
  • JanforGore
  • ks_kickapoo_woman
  • jeckersly316
    • 0
      jeckersly316  
    • JanforGore:

      @ks_kickapoo_woman: I am unaware of the whereabouts of Ms. JanforGore's schooling, however, I can say that her statement--even if slightly cumbersome to the average reader--is in fact grammatically correct.

    • 2 years ago
  • Valence
  • bombastinator
    • 0
      bombastinator  

    • Has anyone thought about the numbers here? Even in someone falling down drunk, the actual alcohol level in the blood is shockingly low compared to actual alcohol. beer is ~5% alcohol. Legally drunk is .01% There's more alcohol in apple juice that's been left out for a while. The woman would be dead before she could produce milk strong enough to harm the child.

    • 2 years ago
  • numinant
  • Leonidis
  • timetide
    • 0
      timetide  

    • yes, yes it is. booze in the mother can transfer to the baby through breast milk. Thus causing damage issues in the child, kindof like smokeing a cig with a baby in the room.

    • 2 years ago
  • CalgarC
  • briuh_
  • MilchMann
  • SDLN
    • 0
      SDLN  

    • It's an interesting question. I mean, this behavior most certainly has a direct effect on another person, curbing any possible "individual rights" argument, IMO.

      However, there's also a difference between the mother who answers the door with a cocktail in hand and a baby on tap, and the woman who responsibly stores milk so she can cut loose on an occasion.

      I think the former of my examples is a definite 'yes' (it's a crime), and the latter is a 'no'. Determining one instance from the other might be extremely difficult, but so it goes.

    • 2 years ago
  • Remdog13
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