While breastmilk for a baby provides a booster to a healthier life, in women, breastfeeding helps to prevent various illnesses, including diabetes. However, if you already have diabetes, you might be wondering if you can take antidiabetic medications like Metformin during breastfeeding. Since breastfeeding plays a crucial role in a baby’s growth, it is important that mothers stay healthy during breastfeeding. Read this post to know about the safety and health benefits of Metformin in breastfeeding mothers.
What Is Metformin?
Metformin is one of the most effective and safe treatments for type 2 diabetes. Patients typically consume the drug alone or with other medications, such as insulin, to treat diabetes. Metformin falls in the ‘biguanides’ class of drugs. Apart from regulating blood sugar levels, metformin offers numerous other health benefits (1).
What Are The Health Benefits Of Metformin While Breastfeeding?
Here we list some of the health benefits of consuming metformin while breastfeeding.
1. Regulates blood sugar levels
Metformin helps control the amount of sugar in the blood of lactating moms. The drug also reduces the quantity of glucose that you absorb from your food and the quantity of glucose that your liver produces. Metformin also raises your body’s response to insulin, the naturally-occurring chemical that regulates glucose in your blood (2).
2. Treats metabolic syndrome
Women who suffer from metabolic syndrome and face obesity issues post delivery. As obesity leads to excess weight accumulation in the belly, the lactating mother can develop insulin resistance. As a result, she may suffer from type 2 diabetes. Metformin lowers the insulin resistance and helps women suffering from metabolic syndrome lose weight (3).
3. Prevents the risk of heart problems and stroke
Consuming metformin helps reduce triglyceride levels and LDL cholesterol levels in nursing mothers. Low triglyceride and LDL cholesterol levels ensure your good health and prevent the risk of heart disease and stroke to a great extent.
4. Treats polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)
Lactating women with polycystic ovary syndrome tend to suffer hormone imbalance that results in the production of harmful levels of male androgen hormones in their bodies. As a result, women with PCOS tend to gain weight, experience endometriosis and have irregular hair growth patterns. If you avoid checking androgen hormone levels, you can be at a high risk of developing uterine cancer, high blood pressure, infertility, or heart ailments. Consuming metformin helps reduce insulin resistance, which in turn reduces the androgen levels in women and prevents health hazards due to PCOS (4).
5. Encourages appropriate weight loss
Consuming metformin lowers LDL cholesterol and triglyceride levels in lactating mothers and prevents additional weight gain. In fact, the drug helps women get rid of obesity and maintain good health and appropriate weight post delivery. In spite of numerous health benefits of having metformin, some women are skeptical about consuming metformin during breastfeeding. Are these merely fear-mongering rumors or are there any side effects? Let’s take a look.
Is Metformin Safe While Breastfeeding?
Metformin concentrations in breast milk are low, and the infant’s exposure is a tiny percentage (about 0.28% as per some studies) of the maternal dose (5). Therefore, the drug is safe for lactating mothers and their babies. Nevertheless, consult your doctor and consume only the prescribed quantity of metformin to regulate the blood sugar level while breastfeeding.
