Is Gemcitabine Safe in Breastfeeding

I am a breastfeeding mother and i want to know if it is safe to use Gemcitabine? Is Gemcitabine safe for nursing mother and child? Does Gemcitabine extracts into breast milk? Does Gemcitabine has any long term or short term side effects on infants? Can Gemcitabine influence milk supply or can Gemcitabine decrease milk supply in lactating mothers?

Drug is cleared from the body in 16 elimination half-lives. Resuming breastfeeding is likely safe after 7 days of of pumping-and-dumping.

Most sources consider breastfeeding to be contraindicated during maternal antineoplastic drug therapy. It might be possible to breastfeed safely during intermittent gemcitabine therapy with an appropriate period of breastfeeding abstinence; the manufacturer recommends an abstinence period of 1 week after the last dose. Chemotherapy may adversely affect the normal microbiome and chemical makeup of breastmilk.[1] Women who receive chemotherapy during pregnancy are more likely to have difficulty nursing their infant.[2]

A telephone follow-up study was conducted on 74 women who received cancer chemotherapy at one center during the second or third trimester of pregnancy to determine if they were successful at breastfeeding postpartum. Only 34% of the women were able to exclusively breastfeed their infants, and 66% of the women reported experiencing breastfeeding difficulties. This was in comparison to a 91% breastfeeding success rate in 22 other mothers diagnosed during pregnancy, but not treated with chemotherapy. Other statistically significant correlations included: 1. mothers with breastfeeding difficulties had an average of 5.5 cycles of chemotherapy compared with 3.8 cycles among mothers who had no difficulties; and 2. mothers with breastfeeding difficulties received their first cycle of chemotherapy on average 3.4 weeks earlier in pregnancy. Of the 9 women who received a fluorouracil-containing regimen, 8 had breastfeeding difficulties.[2]