Beer, breast feeding, and folklore

Abstract

Beer consumption by nursing women altered the sensory qualities of their milk and the behavior of their infants during breast-feeding in the short term. The infants consumed significantly less milk during the 4-hr testing sessions in which their mothers drank alcoholic beer compared to when the mothers drank nonalcoholic beer; this decrease in milk intake was not due to a decrease in the number of times the babies fed. Although the infants consumed less of the alcohol-flavored milk, the mothers believed their infants had ingested enough milk, reported that they experienced a letdown during nursing, and felt they had milk remaining in their breasts at the end of the majority of feedings. Moreover, the mothers terminated the feeds the same percentage of time on both testing days. The mechanism by which the consumption of alcoholic beer by lactating women decreases milk intake by their nurslings remains to be determined.

Fig. 1

The ethanol content of (open circles) and the percentage of time panelists chose (closed circles), milk samples obtained 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4 hr after the mothers consumed a 0.3 g/kg dose of alcoholic beer or an equal volume of nonalcoholic beer (see inset). Using a forced-choice paradigm, the panelists were presented individually with each set of milk samples and asked to indicate which of the pair smelled “stronger” or “more like alcohol.” A value of 50% is expected if there is no difference in the odor of the samples and hence response by the panelists is random. Values below 50% for time 0 and 3 hr are a consequence of these samples being paired with a stronger-smelling sample (i.e., samples collected at 1 or 2 hr after beer consumption).