Someone who has active tuberculosis (TB) can breastfeed if they have received 2 weeks of appropriate anti-TB therapy. Infants can be fed expressed breastmilk during the 2-week period by someone else.1 The risk of TB transmission through breastmilk is negligible and, although the most commonly used anti-TB drugs are excreted into breastmilk in small amounts, there is no evidence that this induces drug resistance.2
As with most infectious diseases, by the time nursing parents present with symptoms, they have already exposed their infant to the pathogen. Cessation of breastfeeding does not prevent exposure, and may instead decrease the infant’s protection that comes through specific maternal antibodies and other protective factors found in human milk. Therefore, common maternal bacterial, fungal, and viral infections in which the mother’s health is not compromised are not contraindications to breastfeeding.3
Please refer to a primary healthcare provider with more TB and breastmilk-related questions, especially with regard to past donations or becoming a donor.
Read our introduction to infectious diseases here.
Please see How can breastmilk be pasteurized at home? for more information on heat-treating and pathogens.
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- Healthy Children – Serious Illnesses and Breastfeeding ↩︎
- WHO. 2016. Guidance for national tuberculosis programmes on the management of tuberculosis in children ↩︎
- Canadian Paediatric Society. 2006. Updated 2016. Maternal Infectious Diseases, Antimicrobial Therapy or Immunizations: Very Few Contraindications to Breastfeeding ↩︎
