Breastmilk and Aborption through the infants digestive tract

[sally13]

Please can you tell me about the process of how (or not) an infant absorbs drugs through its digestive tract found in breast milk. Can you please give me some examples of drugs NOT absorbed this way and some that are. Thank you.

[admin]

sally13:

We actually know very little about the absolute oral absorption of drugs in infants. That said, it appears from what we do know, that it is similar to that of adults. Thus at this point, we assume that drugs that are poorly absorbed in adults, are likewise poorly absorbed in infants as well. Drugs well absorbed from the GI tract are the penicillins and some cephalosporins, and maybe even the antidepressants. Drugs poorly absorbed orally are the large molecular weight antibodies (infliximab), large molecular weight drugs (heparin, low molecular weight heparins), and many other drugs such as domperidone, sumatriptan, etc.

So all in all, it works about the same in infants, as it does in adults, but we still have limited research data on this population(infants).


Tom Hale Ph.D.