all about domperidone
When is it appropriate to use domperidone?
Domperidone must never be used as the first approach to correcting breastfeeding difficulties. Domperidone is not a cure for all things. It must not be used unless all other factors which may result in insufficient milk supply have been dealt with first. These include:
1. correcting the baby's latch so that the baby can obtain as efficiently as possible the milk which the mother has available. Correcting the latch may be all that is necessary to change a situation of "not enough milk" to one of "plenty of milk."
2. using breast compression to increase the intake of milk (see Breast Compression).
3. using milk expression after feedings to increase the supply.
4. correcting sucking problems, stopping the use of artificial nipples (see Using a Lactation Aid, and Finger Feeding) and other stratagems.
Side effects of domperidone
As with all medications, side effects are possible, and many have been reported with domperidone (textbooks often list any side effect ever reported, but symptoms reported are not necessarily due to the drug a person is taking). There is no such thing as a 100% safe drug. However, our clinical experience has been that side effects in the mother are extremely uncommon, except for increasing milk supply. Some side effects which mothers we have treated have reported (very uncommonly, incidentally):
- dry mouth
- headache which disappeared when the dose was reduced
- abdominal cramps
