Ribavirin can affect infants by breast milk.
I have been working as a pharmacist for more than ten years. Never come into contact with ribavirin injection, Several pharmacies I have worked for have not purchased this medicine either. So I went online to check the Chinese instructions. It was found that there was such a sentence in the instruction manual: [Ribavirin has a small amount of drugs excreted from milk, And is toxic to both mother and child, Therefore, breast-feeding women need to suspend breast-feeding during medication, Milk should also be discarded.] Look at this sentence alone, It seems that it is only necessary to suspend lactation during medication. You can breastfeed when you stop taking drugs. But as a professional pharmacist, I can’t give such an answer, Because I know that the human body is not a straight water pipe, It’s not that when the faucet is turned off, there is no water in the water pipe. The metabolic excretion of drugs in the human body is much more complicated than the drainage of water pipes. Look at the pharmacokinetic item in the manual, which reads [drugs can accumulate in red blood cells for several weeks], It is precisely because this drug has the characteristic of long-term accumulation in the body that, In addition, it has definite teratogenicity to the fetus, In the United States, Ribavirin can only be administered orally and inhaled by atomization. No injections, That is to say, there is no dosage form for infusion and administration. Moreover, the instructions of the drug indicate the following words: [Even exposure to therapeutic doses as low as 1% will produce a significant possibility of fetal malformation. Therefore, women of childbearing age and their sexual partners should avoid pregnancy within 6 months of using this drug. Pregnant medical personnel should also avoid administering ribavirin aerosol inhalation to patients.] See here, Let’s go back to the question asked by the nursing mother. I really can’t bear to tell her that this medicine may stay in the body for such a long time and may affect the nursing baby. I can’t bear to tell her that ribavirin should not have been infused in order to treat the common cold that can heal itself! Is it true that other people can lose ribavirin for the common cold except pregnant mothers and nursing mothers? The answer is still [No]. Ribavirin has strict indications for antiviral treatment in the United States. The nebulized dosage form of ribavirin is only allowed to treat severe lower respiratory tract infection caused by respiratory syncytial virus. Note that, This is [severe], and it is the treatment of lower respiratory tract infection below the trachea, especially the treatment of hospitalized patients with lung diseases. The oral dosage form of ribavirin is only used in combination with interferon to treat chronic hepatitis C in adults. I know someone may jump out and say, “This is China, don’t always talk about the United States!” Is China a part of the world? Let’s refer to the latest “Catalogue of Essential Drugs” in the 2013 edition of the World Health Organization. In this catalogue, it is emphasized that ribavirin only treats epidemic hemorrhagic fever when used in children. When used in adults, besides treating epidemic hemorrhagic fever, it is only used in combination with interferon to treat chronic hepatitis C. See here, this drug has no effect on upper respiratory tract infection (that is, the common cold), so stop abusing it.