Using tobacco or e-cigarettes while breastfeeding can allow harmful chemicals to pass from the mother to the infant through breast milk or secondhand smoke exposure.
That's partly because the long-term effects of vaping are not yet known. Even so, there's no need to stop breastfeeding because you vape. Your breastmilk is the perfect food for your baby, and it's all she needs for her first six months.
Nicotine in breast milk and passive smoking can give your baby chest infections, vomiting, diarrhoea and irritability. Avoid smoking for half an hour before you breastfeed.
Licensed NRT products are safe to use while you're breastfeeding. They increase your chances of quitting smoking, especially if you also have support from your local NHS stop smoking service. NRT is available free on prescription while you're pregnant and for 1 year after your baby is born.
While use of e-cigarettes might expose a growing baby to fewer toxins compared with those from regular cigarette use, nicotine exposure of any kind is harmful to a baby. If you're pregnant and you smoke or vape, quitting is the best way to give your baby a healthy start.
The risks of using e-cigarettes with kids at home
Babies exposed to secondhand smoke are more likely to die of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), and kids exposed to secondhand smoke are more likely to get sick more often with ear infections, colds, bronchitis, pneumonia, asthma and breathing problems.
It's not safe to use vape pens or e-cigarette devices around kids. The vapor from e-cigarettes has chemicals in it that can be harmful to kids. There's another serious problem with e-smoking devices: Kids can get poisoned if they drink the liquid in nicotine delivery devices or refills.
Using e-cigarettes around your baby
As there is no direct research on using e cigarettes and SIDS, we suggest you do not share a bed with your baby if you use e cigarettes. The safest option is to give up smoking entirely, but if you choose to use e cigarettes instead then this is likely to be much safer.
You may not smoke or vape anywhere near your baby, but nicotine and other harmful toxins can accumulate in the air, in your body, and in your breast milk. It's called passive exposure, and it puts your baby at a higher risk of developing health problems, like ear infections, bronchitis, and pneumonia.
Wait as much time as possible between smoking and breastfeeding. This will lower the amount of nicotine in your milk while nursing. Be sure to smoke away from your baby and change your clothes to keep your baby away from the chemicals smoking leaves behind.
Nicotine gets into your milk, so try to wait several hours after you smoke before nursing your baby. Second hand smoke increases your baby's risk for ear and respiratory infections, asthma, and even sudden infant death syndrome.
Meconium drug screening identifies substances that can elicit newborn withdrawal symptoms. Including nicotine and/or its metabolites in the meconium drug screen helps discern the level of exposure and assists in the management of withdrawal symptoms.
People also process nicotine differently depending on their genetics. Generally, nicotine will leaves your blood within 1 to 3 days after you stop using tobacco, and cotinine will be gone after 1 to 10 days. Neither nicotine nor cotinine will be detectable in your urine after 3 to 4 days of stopping tobacco products.
Vaping does leave a residue on walls that can attract dirt, however any staining typically takes a long time to build up, and stains can be easily cleaned off using a wet cloth. If you want to minimise staining even further, try vaping near an open window, or in a room with plenty of ventilation.
Is passive vaping harmful? There is no good evidence that second-hand vapour from e-cigarettes is harmful. As vaping is still relatively new, we can't be sure there aren't any long-term effects to people who breathe in someone else's vapour. But this is unlikely to be harmful.
The study, which analyzed hundreds of homes and factored in a variety of variables, concluded that contrary to popular opinion, vaping indoors does not cause any pollution or affect indoor air quality.
Alcohol and tobacco use during lactation may not increase ADHD or ASD risk. Abstaining from alcohol and tobacco, however, may still be the safest option.
1: Vaping is less harmful than smoking, but it's still not safe. E-cigarettes heat nicotine (extracted from tobacco), flavorings and other chemicals to create an aerosol that you inhale. Regular tobacco cigarettes contain 7,000 chemicals, many of which are toxic.
Smoking can damage your baby's developing lungs and brain. The damage can last through childhood and into the teen years. Smoking doubles your risk of abnormal bleeding during pregnancy and delivery. This can put both you and your baby in danger.
The level of sleep disruption was directly related to the dose of nicotine infants received from their mothers' milk, consistent with a role for nicotine in causing the sleep disruptions.
Nicotine poisoning often causes nausea, vomiting, dizziness, tremors (shakiness), and sweating, and can make the heart beat much faster than normal. Severe poisoning can cause seizures. It can even cause death.
Unlike during pregnancy, a nursing woman who smokes occasionally can time breastfeeding in relation to smoking, because nicotine is not stored in breast milk and levels parallel those found in maternal plasma, peaking ~30 to 60 minutes after the cessation of smoking and decreasing thereafter.
Indulging in too much caffeine, alcohol or smoking: All your vices might definitely give you a temporary high but will harm your breastfeeding routine irreparably. This is because caffeine, alcohol and tobacco can all affect your milk supply adversely.