Breastfeeding moms taking codeine could kill their babies
‘The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday issued a public health advisory warning that breastfeeding mothers’ taking codeine could in rare cases kill their babies due to an overdose of morphine released to the breast milk.
The risk is associated with morphine, a metabolite of codeine. Some women who can rapidly metabolize codeine and release high levels of it into their breast milk, which could poison their babies.
The FDA advisory was issued after the federal agency noticed a fatal case of codeine-derived morphine poisoning in a 13-day old breastfed baby, which was reported last year in the August 2006 issue of Lancet, a British medical journal.’
