National Library of Medicine Launches LactMed

The National Library of Medicine's TOXNET system has launched LactMed, a database of information about drugs and lactation which contains over 450 drug records. It's free and searchable at http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/htmlgen?LACT.

The database is searchable by drug name (ex Synthroid) or drug category (ex antidepressants). I did a search for Amoxicillin and got a result page divided into two parts. The first part was for the drug itself. The second part was for the records of other drugs which mention the name for which I searched.

Click on a drug name to get the information page, which is divided into two parts. The left side contains an outline of the information available (Summary of Use during Lactation, Effects in Breastfed Infants, etc.) while the right contains the information itself. The information includes case studies on infants exposed to the drug in breastmilk, recommendations, and at the end a summary on whether the drug should be considered safe for use by lactating mothers or not.

In addition to the database this site also contains a short link list, a glossary specific to LactMed, and an overview of the record format.

Posted to Science-Medicine-Drugs