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Answered on
Breastfeeding mothers rarely need to stop breastfeeding when they are sick or taking some drugs and medications. Exceptions include:
- Certain infections, like HIV; untreated, active tuberculosis (okay to pump); untreated brucellosis; active herpes lesions on the breast (okay to pump); and mothers who are positive for the human T-cell lymphotropic virus type I or II .
- Drugs of abuse
- Chemotherapy
- Medications that are dangerous for a breastfeeding baby (find out if there are alternative drugs that you could take instead).
Simply having a cold, fever, stomach bug, or most other illnesses is not a reason to stop breastfeeding your baby. It is much more common to have to stop breastfeeding temporarily because a mother is sick and has to take a medication that is not safe for a breastfeeding baby. In these cases, mothers may want to pump and dump to keep their breast milk supply up.