The most worrying thing about breastfeeding is that you have a cold and a fever, and if you don’t take medication for fear that the disease won’t be easy to delay taking care of your baby, and if you do take medication you feel that the medication will enter your baby’s body along with your breast milk, which is really a difficult situation! So, can breastfeeding moms take medicine for a cold and fever? How to deal with it correctly? In fact, in many cases, it does not affect breastfeeding. Breastfeeding moms can continue to breastfeed if they have a cold Colds are usually caused by viral infections, which may be transmitted to the baby when the mom has no symptoms yet. Cold viruses usually proliferate and multiply in the upper respiratory tract, so they do not reach the bloodstream or breast milk. However, it is transmitted to the baby through the inhalation tract and hands when the mom is in close contact with the baby, including breastfeeding. Therefore, mothers can continue breastfeeding if they have a cold, but it is better for mothers to wear a mask and pay attention to their hand hygiene to minimize the risk of transmission to the baby. Similarly, if the baby has a cold, it can be passed on to the mom, and care should be taken to prevent this. Mothers with colds may also have a fever, even reaching 39°C and above, but it does not mean that mothers need to stop breastfeeding if they have a fever, and in general they do not need to stop breastfeeding, and this temperature will not harm the breastmilk either. When a mother has a cold, her body will produce antibodies and other immune substances to fight against the virus, which makes the body to remove the virus, and the antibodies and other substances can be passed to the baby through breast milk, which is helpful to increase the baby’s ability to resist the virus. Can a breastfeeding mom continue to breastfeed her baby if she has the flu? Compared to the common cold, the symptoms of influenza are more serious, with a significant fever and severe body aches, and if the symptoms are severe, active treatment is needed. Whether a mom can breastfeed her baby if she has the flu may still depend on the severity of the mom’s symptoms. If the symptoms are mild, breastfeeding is usually not affected, but remember to pay attention to prevention, wearing masks and hand hygiene. To prevent the flu, get vaccinated as soon as possible after the flu vaccine becomes available, especially if you have children and elderly people at home, including pregnant women. The flu vaccine should be given only after the baby reaches 6 months of age. Can breastfeeding moms take fever-reducing medication? If a mom has a cold or fever and needs to take medication to reduce the fever, she can use drugs such as ibuprofen to reduce the fever, which are also safe for breastfeeding and do not affect breastfeeding. However, if a breastfeeding mom chooses some compounded cold medicines, herbal medicines and other medicines whose safety during breastfeeding is not obvious, it is still recommended to use the medicines under the guidance of a doctor because the safety cannot be assessed. Tips for moms: Influenza vaccine is not suitable for babies under 6 months old, and they need to rely on their mothers more for their resistance to influenza, so it is recommended that breastfeeding moms get the influenza vaccine. Similarly, in order to prevent family members from getting the flu and spreading the virus to their babies, caregivers who take care of babies at home should also get the flu vaccine in a timely manner. Breastfeeding mothers who have no choice but to use unsafe medications that are contraindicated during breastfeeding need to stop breastfeeding. And even if the medication is over, breastfeeding should not be resumed immediately. The time to resume breastfeeding needs to be calculated based on the theory that drugs are cleared from the body. Every drug has a half-life, which is usually indicated in the drug insert, or you can consult your doctor.