# how long till caffeine leaves the breastmilk?



## calpurnia (Sep 26, 2004)

if i quit drinking caffeine, how long till it should all be out of my system & not getting through to the babe?


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## SaraLe6 (Mar 4, 2009)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *calpurnia* 
if i quit drinking caffeine, how long till it should all be out of my system & not getting through to the babe?


The average half-life of caffeine is 3-12 hours. For pregnant women snd smokers, the half-life can be as much as 20 hours. Half-life refers to the amount of time it takes for your body to get rid of half of a dose of caffeine. Each half-life that passes, you've lost half of what was present. So if you consume enough caffeine to have a 3 hour half life, after 3hours 50% of the caffeine in your system is gone. After another 3 hours, 75% of of the caffeine in your system is gone (half of the remaining 50% is eliminated in the second 12 hours), after ANOTHER 3 hours (so 9 hours from when you consumed the caffeine) 87.5% of the caffeine is gone (half of the remaining 25%).. etc etc.. until you finally have a negligible amount (less than 1%) around 21 hours after you consumed the caffeine. The amount of time it takes grows exponentially with the amount you consume.. if you consume enough to have a half-life of 12 hours, for example, it would take 84 hours to get to less than 1% of the original dose instead of 21.


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## calpurnia (Sep 26, 2004)

wow, thanks for that! that makes me feel like i should give it a while longer before deciding this makes no difference to the baby's sleep & going back on. but i really miss my tea!


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## karika (Nov 4, 2005)

you could try some safe for nursing herbal teas (like chamomile)or a naturally decaffeinated tea. although the latter still contains minute traces of caffeine which affected both my dds a lot... but I quit caffeine back in '99, once I realized what a dangerous drug it is. At the time I was consuming 5 cans of Mountain Dew at least a day. Since '99 I use it as I would any other drug or medicine or plant, when I need its effects. I use Mountain Dew on cross country driving trips, or if I need a little help going to the bathroom but have no prunes... but def not while bfing... I had a small coke from a fast food rest once (because I was really craving it)when dd1 was 3 mo... she was awake for 17 hrs.

It is really physically hard to quit, or was for me at least. I slept for nearly 2 days straight, and had a headache non stop for 2 weeks, and the salivating at the sight of and craving nonstop lasted for 30 days. really glad i did it before kids... maybe if you are feeling too bad you could have just a bit and try to step down....


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## tanyalynn (Jun 5, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *SaraLe6* 
The average half-life of caffeine is 3-12 hours. For pregnant women snd smokers, the half-life can be as much as 20 hours. Half-life refers to the amount of time it takes for your body to get rid of half of a dose of caffeine. Each half-life that passes, you've lost half of what was present. So if you consume enough caffeine to have a 3 hour half life, after 3hours 50% of the caffeine in your system is gone. After another 3 hours, 75% of of the caffeine in your system is gone (half of the remaining 50% is eliminated in the second 12 hours), after ANOTHER 3 hours (so 9 hours from when you consumed the caffeine) 87.5% of the caffeine is gone (half of the remaining 25%).. etc etc.. until you finally have a negligible amount (less than 1%) around 21 hours after you consumed the caffeine. *The amount of time it takes grows exponentially with the amount you consume.*. if you consume enough to have a half-life of 12 hours, for example, it would take 84 hours to get to less than 1% of the original dose instead of 21.

Are you sure that it is _mostly_ related to the amount consumed? To me it seems like it would be much more related to the speed of your phase 1 liver detoxification process, and secondarily to how much you consume (if you consume enough to fill up a high proportion of your phase 1 bandwidth). There's a lot of variation, genetically, in speed of phase 1, and then various health situations (being pregnant or a smoker would be included) that would affect it as well.


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## SaraLe6 (Mar 4, 2009)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *TanyaLopez* 
Are you sure that it is _mostly_ related to the amount consumed? To me it seems like it would be much more related to the speed of your phase 1 liver detoxification process, and secondarily to how much you consume (if you consume enough to fill up a high proportion of your phase 1 bandwidth). There's a lot of variation, genetically, in speed of phase 1, and then various health situations (being pregnant or a smoker would be included) that would affect it as well.

I didn't and wouldn't say it is mostly related to the amount consumed, just that there is a correspondence there. I also agree that each person's body is going to be different in the amount of time it takes to process and eliminate the caffeine. While it's not really possible to determine how long it takes your body personally (I'm sure you could get it done at the doctor's office via bloodtests but that's a bit extreme just to find out how long caffeine stays in your body), it is safe to assume that the more you consume, the more likely it is that it will take 12 hours for your body to eliminate half of it. Just to be on the safe side, I would make the assumption that it will take closer to that 84 hours, just so you really know "for sure" whether the elimination benefits your baby or not.


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