A team of scientists from the Monell Chemical Senses Center found that nicotine in the breast milk of a tobacco-addicted nursing mother reduces sleep time and makes babies restless. Which directly says that smoking and breastfeeding are incompatible.

According to Dr. Julia A. Menella ( Julie A. Menella ), while the baby wakes up the faster, the less time between the cigarette smoked by the mother and the feeding procedure.

This study, published in the journal Pediatrics , again raises the question of the effect of smoking on a child during the feeding period. In most cases, if a woman quits smoking during pregnancy, then after giving birth, the young mother most often returns to the addiction.

During the study, scientists observed 15 infants for two days. Each mother had to smoke 1-3 cigarettes just prior to the observation period (which was 3.5 hours) on one day, and stop smoking on the following day. After feeding, the children were laid on their backs, waiting for them to fall asleep. An activity recorder was attached to each infant, which made it possible to record their state during sleep and its duration. The levels of nicotine and cotinine in breast milk were also measured.

The results of the study showed that if the mother smokes a cigarette before feeding, the baby’s sleep time is reduced by 37%. The level of sleep anxiety was directly related to the amount of nicotine contained in breast milk.

According to the conclusions of scientists from Monell ‘s laboratory , the highest level of nicotine in mother’s milk occurs 30-60 minutes after smoking one or two cigarettes. Complete cleansing occurs within three hours. Thus, breastfeeding mothers who cannot stop smoking should control the time of feeding, thus regulating the amount of nicotine that the infant receives with breast milk.