BF and meds - BF and sleeping through the night
I wanted to mention a couple of things here: first, if it is important to you to continue nursing your baby, always get a second opinion from someone KNOWLEDGEABLE about breastfeeding and medications before you decide to wean. Most doctors are so concerned about liability that they will tell you to wean if they aren't sure, rather than take the time to look up accurate information. Thomas Hale (the author of "Medications and Mother's Milk") has an excellent website that gives lots of specific information about drugs and breastfeeding that you can share with your doctor if he doesn't have access to this book. Many doctors just aren't aware of the research and information that is available, if they just know where to look:
http://neonatal.ttuhsc.edu/lact/
For the record: there is lots of new research about anti-depressants and sedatives and how they affect the nursing mother, because so many mothers are taking them. The general concensus is that most of them (including Paxil, Zoloft, Ativan, and Inderal)are generally considered safe for nursing mothers. Anytime a doctor is debating the safety of a drug during lactation, he should balance the theoretical risk of taking the drug against the proven benefits of breastfeeding. In his new book, Dr. Jack Newman states that:"Drug manufacturers tend to say all drugs are contraindicated for breastfeeding mothers, in order to protect themselves from legal liability. If your health care professional's first suggestion is a medication that requires you to stop breastfeeding, you have a right to be concerned that not enough attention is being paid to the importance of breastfeeding."
As far as formula helping babies sleep longer stretches: It is true that the "average" breastfed baby tends to feed more often that the "average" formula-fed baby, but this is due to the fact that formula is harder to digest and takes longer to pass through the baby's digestive system than breastmilk, and not because formula has more calories than breastmilk. Both formula and human milk have about the same number of calories, because the formula manufacturers model their formula on human milk and try to make it as much like it as possible. Breastmilk is the "gold standard" on which formula is based.
It is a myth that formula feeding will make your baby sleep through the night. While the "average" formula-fed baby may go longer stretches than the "average" breastfed baby, the reality is that in real life, there is no such thing as an "average" baby. I have seen breastfed babies who slept through the night from day one, and formula fed babies who were still waking up during the night when they were two years old. If it were that simple to make babies sleep at night (just fill them up with formula or cereal before bedtime) then there wouldn't be hundreds of books on the market on how to get your baby to sleep through the night.
If you formula feed your baby and he sleeps through the night, then that's fantastic because all new moms like nothing better than a good night's sleep.
Be aware, though, that sometimes the price you pay for that long sleep stretch at night is more colic, more gassiness, more allergies, more ear infections, and more general illness - the younger your baby is, the more the risk is that he will have problems with formula. Although many babies do well with formula, it is important to be aware of the risks associated with formula feeding.
If you do choose to formula feed your baby, that's fine. My concern is with moms who really want to breastfeed, but switch to formula in the mistaken belief that it will guarantee them a good night's sleep, or because a misinformed health care provider tells them they have to wean because a drug isn't safe to take, without really doing the research to back up their opinion.
