Decision to be made on 6mp & breastfeeding

I don’t post often, but read the forum all the time and get lots of support always when required. So here I am again, with a question on medication.

 

I am currently 7 months pregnant with our second. I have been managing my symptoms great while pregnant and have been on Asacol and 6mp (50mg) daily. Now I need to make a decision on if I want to breastfeed or not. My research and GI both say that breastfeeding while on 6mp is not recommended, so I have decided that I will not breastfeed while on it. However, I cannot make up my mind if I should come off the medication now and attempt to breast feed or go straight with formula.

 

My GI is very supportive of either way and has recommended that if I decide to breastfeed, I should come off 6mp this week and see how my body reacts. He is saying that it will take 4-6 weeks for any symptoms to appear should I start to flaring up again, at which point I can go on Steroids and straight back to 6mp to nip it in the bud.

 

He also gave me the worst case scenario, that I might flare up really badly, requiring to deliver the baby earlier than normal, but as my last pregnancy was managed with Asacol only, this also could happen now and I might stay in remission.

 

I flared up really badly last time 6 weeks after giving birth, but I managed the flare with low dose steroids and weaned my little one off at 5 months & went on 6mp.

 

Gosh. I don’t know if I am making any sense at all. Basically, I am just wondering if anyone has come off 6mp, how quickly did the symptoms appear if they started flaring and how easy was it to get under control again.

Am I playing with fire here, wanting to breastfeed and possibly risk going into a really bad flare up ?

Hello,

I am where you are...  I am currently flaring with a 3 1/2 month old.  I'm on 35mg prednisone but still  seeing mucuous and after thinking the bleeding stopped, I saw scant amounts in my stool today.  Docs say being on prednisone is not detremental to a nursing infant, but I may have to go go up higher on my dose...  worse case scenaria, I will have to go on Imuran...  which means no breastfeeding.  It's such a crappy thing to be sick with a baby.  I have to do whar it takes to be a healthy mommy.

Hi with my son baby I flared severely throughout the pregnancy,IVsteriods/cyclosporin 3weeks after he was born the doctor wanted to start Azathioprine so I was advised to stop breast-feeding,
Three years later my daughter was born I enjoyed a flare free pregnancy and was still on azathioprine,medical opinion seemed to have changed somewhat I asked my Doc about breast-feeding and he found follow up cases where women had breast fed sucessfully while on Azathioprine I the genneral feeling seemed to support the idea that the benefits of breast feeding out weigh the risks so I breast-fed my daughter,with no adverse effects we are now part of the study.
I was also told I could express the next feed in the evening after I took Imuran where it would be most concentrated in the milk which I did although some women did not do this.
I was to risky for me to come off the azathioprine as I was almost bound to flare like you were saying six weeks post-part anyway I just thought I'd post this in case you had not considered this option there is quite alot of evidence that while breast feeding on Aza has some risk its a much smaller than previously thought.My daughter is a happy healthy 2 year old who has never had even a minor cold where as my 5 year son who was bottle fed gets every cough and cold going has had pheumonia already gets numerous tummy upsets and such I would say his immune system seems alot weaker but that could be also due to me being ill during pregnancy,lower bith weight and other factors anyways I just thought you'd be interested
Take care Anna

I'm pregnant with my first and due in December.
I have yet to talk with my GI about breastfeeding on 4.8g of Lialda daily.
I'm actually scared of that conversation.
I want to breastfeed, but I don't want my baby getting all these meds from my milk. I want to ask her if I can cut down to 2.4g or if that would even make a difference in the milk at all. I totally feel what you're going through. I haven't had a flare yet in pregnancy, and I had 2 small flares (less than a week duration) in the past few years after a decade or so w/o remission so I'm scared to come down on the Lialda because it's the first drug that's actually seemed to work for me.

Good luck to you!

I also breastfed my son while on Asacol and he had no ill effects. I am planning on staying on Asacolon after birth as well, wouldn't dare to even think about coming off it.