Medical History Mysteries: How to safely treat your breastfeeding patients
What anesthetics, antibiotics, and analgesics can we use for our breastfeeding patients? Previously, we’ve talked about how to treat our pregnant patients with the safest local anesthetic, but once they’re breastfeeding, we have a whole new set of factors to consider.
Medications are only effective in our bodies if they’re fat soluble because we have phospholipid membranes. Drugs will only cross our membranes and work if those drugs are fat soluble. One of the major components of breast milk is fat, so medications can easily leave the mother’s bloodstream and enter the breast milk.
When you’re planning dental treatment, you must make Mom part of that conversation. She may have to preplan by pumping milk for a time prior to treatment to eliminate the risk of the medications transferring from her to her breast milk.
In this episode of Medical History Mysteries, we’ll talk about how different medications react, what to do if your patient didn’t pump before treatment, and the importance of involving the patient’s pediatrician in treatment planning. As always, all of this points to keeping an accurate, up-to-date medical history on every patient for as long as they are in your practice.
More Medical History Mysteries videos:
- What’s the safest local anesthetic for pregnant patients?
- 5 things that should be in every medical history
Editor’s note: This article first appeared in Through the Loupes newsletter, a publication of the Endeavor Business Media Dental Group. Read more articles and subscribe to Through the Loupes.
