Every August, National Breastfeeding Month highlights the importance of ensuring breastfeeding families have access to the care, education, and resources they need.
For many new parents, one of the first questions after leaving the hospital isn’t whether breastfeeding is beneficial. It’s whether they can safely take the medication they need while continuing to breastfeed.
As new medications enter the market and more parents return to work soon after childbirth, questions about breastfeeding and medication safety have become increasingly common.
Medication questions, postpartum recovery, mental health concerns, returning to work, limited access to lactation support, and individual medical conditions can all shape a family’s feeding journey. For many parents, breastfeeding is not simply a personal choice. It is a clinical, emotional, and practical experience that often requires ongoing guidance.
For nurses, lactation consultants, pharmacists, and other healthcare professionals, National Breastfeeding Month is also a reminder that their role doesn’t end at hospital discharge. Ongoing education, reassurance, and evidence-based guidance can help families navigate breastfeeding long after they return home.
Why National Breastfeeding Month Matters
Established in 2011, National Breastfeeding Month brings together healthcare organizations, public health leaders, and community advocates to raise awareness about breastfeeding and strengthen support for breastfeeding families. The observance complements World Breastfeeding Week, held annually from August 1 through 7, which promotes breastfeeding worldwide.
Leading health organizations, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), recognize that breastfeeding provides important nutritional and immunological benefits for infants while also offering potential health benefits for the breastfeeding parent. At the same time, both organizations acknowledge that breastfeeding is not always straightforward and that families often need ongoing support after leaving the hospital.
Parents may encounter challenges such as:
- Difficulty achieving a comfortable latch
- Concerns about milk supply
- Breast pain, engorgement, or mastitis
- Questions about pumping after returning to work
- Conflicting advice from healthcare professionals
- Concerns about taking prescription or over-the-counter medications while breastfeeding
- Anxiety, depression, sleep deprivation, or other postpartum health concerns
- Limited access to lactation specialists or community support
National Breastfeeding Month encourages healthcare professionals, employers, and communities to recognize these challenges while improving the systems that help families meet their breastfeeding goals.
Nurses Are Often the First Source of Breastfeeding Support
Whether they work in labor and delivery, postpartum care, pediatrics, primary care, or community health, nurses are often among the first healthcare professionals parents turn to with breastfeeding questions.
Their role extends far beyond encouraging breastfeeding. Nurses help parents understand what is normal, recognize concerns early, provide reassurance, answer questions, and connect families with additional resources when needed.
Depending on their role and practice setting, nurses may:
- Assess positioning, latch, and feeding effectiveness
- Help parents recognize signs that an infant is feeding well
- Identify concerns that warrant medical evaluation or referral to a lactation specialist
- Provide practical guidance about pumping and returning to work
- Encourage realistic feeding plans that fit each family’s circumstances
- Collaborate with prescribers, pharmacists, and lactation consultants when medication questions arise
- Support parents whose feeding plans change without judgment
Most importantly, nurses help create an environment where families feel heard rather than judged. Effective breastfeeding support respects patient autonomy and recognizes that informed feeding decisions look different for every family.
Medication Questions Shouldn’t Automatically Mean Breastfeeding Must Stop
Nearly every nurse who cares for postpartum patients has heard some version of the same question: “Can I take this medication and keep breastfeeding?”
For some parents, the worry begins with a new prescription. Others hesitate to seek treatment altogether because they’re afraid the medication could affect their baby. In some situations, recommendations to discontinue breastfeeding may be based on incomplete or outdated information rather than current evidence.
Questions about medication safety rarely have simple yes-or-no answers. Whether a medication is appropriate during breastfeeding depends on factors such as:
- The specific medication and dosage
- How much of the medication may transfer into human milk
- The infant’s age, health status, and gestational age
- The condition being treated
- Available treatment alternatives
- The parent’s breastfeeding goals
Equally important is evaluating the risks of leaving a maternal health condition untreated. Delaying treatment for infections, chronic illnesses, anxiety, depression, or other medical conditions may also affect both parent and infant.
Helping families understand these factors empowers them to make informed choices rather than fear-driven decisions.
Supporting Maternal Mental Health Is Part of Breastfeeding Support
Breastfeeding conversations should always include maternal mental health.
Postpartum depression, anxiety, sleep deprivation, and other mental health conditions can significantly affect feeding experiences and overall family well-being. Nurses are often among the first healthcare professionals to recognize when additional support is needed.
That support may include screening for postpartum depression, encouraging open conversations about emotional health, discussing medication concerns with the healthcare team, connecting families with behavioral health and lactation resources, and directing patients to trusted educational resources such as the U.S. Office on Women’s Health, which offers practical guidance on breastfeeding, pumping, common challenges, and finding lactation support.
Breastfeeding should never come at the expense of a parent’s physical or mental health. Supporting maternal well-being and supporting breastfeeding are complementary goals, not competing priorities.
Breastfeeding Support Doesn’t End at Hospital Discharge
For many families, the real questions don’t begin until they get home, when support may be less accessible than it was in the hospital.
Parents may struggle to establish pumping routines after returning to work, locate private pumping spaces, access follow-up lactation care, or find community support. In some areas, access to International Board Certified Lactation Consultants (IBCLCs) and breastfeeding resources remains limited.
That support doesn’t end when patients leave the hospital. Before discharge, nurses can help families prepare for common breastfeeding challenges, answer questions they may encounter at home, and connect them with follow-up resources before problems become barriers.
National Breastfeeding Month also highlights the importance of broader system improvements, including workplace accommodations, insurance coverage for lactation services, consistent clinical guidance, and equitable access to breastfeeding support.
Helping Nurses Answer One of Breastfeeding’s Most Common Questions
When patients ask whether a prescription medication, over-the-counter product, herbal supplement, vaccine, or medical condition is compatible with breastfeeding, clinicians need current, evidence-based information.
For more than three decades, Hale’s Medications & Mothers’ Milk has served as one of the most trusted clinical references on medication safety during lactation. The 2025-2026 Twenty-first Edition continues that tradition with updated evidence and expanded guidance for today’s clinical practice.
Written by Thomas W. Hale, RPh, PhD, and Kaytlin Krutsch, PhD, PharmD, MBA, BCPS, the manual helps nurses, lactation consultants, pharmacists, physicians, and other healthcare professionals evaluate medication use during breastfeeding using the latest available evidence.
The newest edition includes expanded guidance on medications that frequently generate questions from breastfeeding patients, including therapies for obesity, heart failure, anxiety, and postpartum depression. It also features Dr. Hale’s well-known Lactation Risk Categories, allowing clinicians to evaluate medication use while considering both maternal treatment needs and infant safety.
Rather than relying on outdated assumptions or unnecessarily recommending that breastfeeding stop, healthcare professionals can use current evidence to support individualized clinical decision-making and more meaningful conversations with patients.
Nurses and other clinicians looking for evidence-based guidance can learn more about Hale’s Medications & Mothers’ Milk 2025-2026 here.
Supporting Families Through Evidence-Based Care
National Breastfeeding Month is about more than encouraging breastfeeding. It’s about ensuring families have access to the clinical expertise, accurate information, and compassionate support they need to make informed feeding decisions.
Every family’s journey is different. By listening without judgment, addressing medication concerns with current evidence, supporting maternal mental health, and connecting patients with appropriate resources, nurses can make a meaningful difference throughout the breastfeeding journey.
For nurses, breastfeeding support has never been about having all the answers. It’s about listening, answering questions honestly, and helping families find trustworthy information so they can make the decisions that are right for them.
As new medications enter clinical practice, access to current, evidence-based lactation references becomes increasingly important. Resources such as Hale’s Medications & Mothers’ Milk 2025-2026 help clinicians answer those questions with confidence while supporting both maternal health and infant well-being
