Nicotine can be present in breast milk for a few hours after smoking or vaping. There are steps you can take to reduce your baby’s exposure to nicotine in breast milk.

Nursing can provide many benefits for both you and your baby. Indeed, most babies in the United States, about 84%, start out receiving some breast milk.

You may know that a variety of things can be passed to your baby through breast milk. One of these is nicotine, the stimulant compound found in tobacco products.

If you smoke cigarettes, vape, or use other tobacco products, you may be wondering how long nicotine can stay in your breast milk. Continue reading below to find the answer to this question and several others related to nicotine and nursing.

After you smoke a cigarette, the levels of nicotine in your blood and breast milk will increase. They will then slowly decrease over time until you have your next cigarette.

The levels of nicotine in your breast milk will decrease by roughly half after 90 minutes. That means that it may take a few hours for nicotine to completely leave your breast milk.

A 2016 study looked into this question more directly. The researchers measured nicotine in a volunteer’s breast milk over time after they had smoked a single cigarette.

They found that nicotine levels peaked in breast milk 30 minutes after smoking. After 3 hours, nicotine was no longer detectable in the breast milk.

The answer is basically no.

If you do smoke or use other tobacco products, you’ll need to wait to nurse until most or all of the nicotine has left your breast milk. However, there are things you can do to help limit the amount of nicotine in your breast milk in the first place.

There’s not as much research regarding vaping or e-cigarettes and breastfeeding, so not much is known about how the use of these devices may affect people who nurse their babies.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend that pregnant people and people who breastfeed avoid using e-cigarettes since they may contain nicotine as well as other potentially harmful chemicals.

While the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has authorized some e-cigarette products for sale in the United States, they have not approved their use and have not studied their use during pregnancy or while breastfeeding.

Just as with cigarettes, it’s possible that nicotine can be passed to a nursing child if a nursing parent has recently used an e-cigarette product that contains nicotine.

If you’re concerned about nicotine in breast milk, the best step you can take for your health and your baby’s health is to quit smoking.

However, if you’re not quite ready for that yet, try out the tips below to help limit the nicotine that’s present in your breast milk.

Cut back

Cutting back on your use of cigarettes or other tobacco products can limit the presence of nicotine in your breast milk.

A 2017 study found that, among the participants who reported that smoking factored into their nursing decisions, 83% said that they stopped smoking or cut back on their smoking frequency in order to nurse.

Smoke after nursing

Because nicotine levels rise right after smoking and then start to fall, consider smoking right after you’ve nursed your baby. That way, you’ll give nicotine levels time to fall before you nurse your baby again.

However, this method may not always be feasible with a new baby who may want to nurse more frequently.

Consider smoking cessation aids

Instead of smoking a cigarette right after nursing, consider using a smoking cessation aid at this time instead. These include products like nicotine patches and nicotine gums.

A smoking cessation aid provides you with a steady dose of nicotine. It’s likely that nicotine levels in your blood and breast milk will be lower using these than they are when you smoke.

Additionally, cigarette smoke contains 7,000 different chemicals, over 70 of which are associated with cancer. Using smoking cessation aids also has the added benefit of reducing your baby’s exposure to harmful secondhand smoke.

Finding help to stop smoking

If you’d like to stop smoking but aren’t sure where to start, check out some of the resources below.

Your healthcare professional is also a valuable resource in your journey to quit smoking. They can also work with you to develop a quit plan that you can stick to.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) strongly encourages nursing mothers to stop smoking. They also suggest that using e-cigarettes is not a way to stop smoking while pregnant or nursing.

AAP doesn’t consider smoking a reason to not nurse your baby. That’s because nursing has so many different benefits for you and your baby, even if you do smoke.

Benefits for your baby

The benefits of nursing for your baby include:

Benefits for you

Nursing provides several benefits to you as well. These are:

While nursing your baby, even while smoking, does have a long list of benefits, it has a few risks. Let’s discuss these now.

Negative health effects for your baby

Smoking and nicotine exposure during nursing can lead to negative health effects for your baby. An older review pointed out the following effects of nicotine on nursed infants:

  • disrupted sleeping and waking patterns
  • damage to the lungs or liver
  • a reduction in pancreatic beta-cells, the cells that make insulin, and reduced glucose tolerance

If you smoke, secondhand smoke exposure can also have harmful effects on your baby. According to the CDC, this includes increasing your baby’s risk of:

  • lower respiratory infections like bronchitis and pneumonia
  • ear infections
  • impaired lung function
  • SIDS

That’s why you should never smoke near your baby. In general, avoid smoking inside your house or in your car. Going outside to smoke may help limit your baby’s exposure to secondhand smoke. However, the CDC also notes that secondhand smoke can stay on clothing which may expose your baby to secondhand smoke as well.

Negative effects on your breast milk

Smoking and nicotine may also negatively affect your breast milk. This might include:

Earlier weaning

Smoking while nursing is linked to early weaning. For example, a 2017 study found that, among participants who chose to smoke while nursing, 41% reported weaning before 2 months.

Another more recent 2024 study found that, compared to households where no one smoked, babies in households where at least one parent smoked were less likely to be nursed at 6 months.

It’s unclear why smoking is associated with earlier weaning. It may be due to physical factors like lower breast milk production or due to concerns about the effects of nicotine and smoking on the baby.

Overall, more research is needed into this area. What is known, though, is that a shorter nursing period means that your baby will receive the benefits associated with nursing for a shorter period of time.

How long should you wait to breastfeed after smoking or vaping?

You’ll need to wait a few hours to nurse after smoking or vaping if you want nicotine to be gone from your breast milk. One study found it took 3 hours for nicotine to clear from breast milk, although this may vary by person.

Can you breastfeed if you used to smoke?

Yes. You can still nurse if you used to smoke. There are no nicotine-related risks to doing so.

If you smoke, you can pass nicotine to your baby through breast milk. Nicotine can stay in breast milk for several hours after smoking a cigarette.

There are risks associated with nicotine and smoking while nursing. These include increasing your baby’s risk for a variety of health problems, causing negative changes in breast milk, and boosting the likelihood of early weaning.

Nevertheless, nursing provides several benefits for both yourself and your baby, regardless of if you smoke.

While it’s best to quit smoking while nursing, there are steps that you can take to reduce your baby’s exposure to nicotine. These include cutting back, smoking right after nursing, and using smoking cessation aids.