Ayahuasca and breastfeeding don’t mix at our center. We don’t serve the brew to anyone who’s nursing, and we ask mothers to book after they’ve weaned. No published study has checked how much of the brew reaches breast milk. e-lactancia is a lactation-safety database run by a Spanish breastfeeding group. It rates ayahuasca “limited compatibility” and works out a wait of about 2 days after 1 dose. A retreat here means 4 ceremonies across 8 nights, with a second cup offered at each one.
We think that 2-day figure is too short for 1 reason and beside the point for another. It’s short because a 1999 blood study put the slowest alkaloid’s half-life near 9 hours. It’s beside the point because of the calendar. A nursing mother at our 10-day retreat would spend 12 to 14 days away from her baby, travel included. For 7 to 9 of those days, she’d be pouring her milk away.
Since 2017, our Río Momón center has hosted about 1,900 guests, 44% of them women. A doctor reads every application before we offer anyone a place.
Are ayahuasca and breastfeeding ever safe together?
No published study shows that they are, because no study has measured the brew in milk. That gap is why our answer is no until you’ve weaned.
Ayahuasca and breastfeeding is the question of whether a nursing mother can drink the brew without exposing her baby through milk. The brew carries DMT plus harmine, harmaline and tetrahydroharmine (THH), alkaloids that stop your body breaking DMT down. No published study has measured any of them in human milk, so every waiting time is a calculation from blood data.
e-lactancia’s entry on ayahuasca, last updated in July 2023, found no published data on the brew in breast milk. It says the chemistry pulls 2 ways. The alkaloids are small and chemically basic, 2 traits that help a drug cross into milk. They also spread widely through the body’s tissues, which works against it. Its advice is to use a safer option or stop breastfeeding for 5 to 7 half-lives.
ICEERS is a nonprofit that studies ayahuasca. Its 2019 safety guide, published by Catalonia’s public health agency, puts it in 1 line: “Ayahuasca is not recommended for pregnant or lactating women.”
A lab project took up the question in 2026. Funded by FAPESP, the São Paulo Research Foundation, it ran from January to July. It set out to test how DMT and harmine cross human breast cells in a dish, to predict how much reaches milk. As of October 2026, we haven’t found published results.
That’s why breastfeeding is on the absolute stops we publish for ayahuasca. Pregnancy is a separate automatic no, covered in our guide for women.
How long do ayahuasca’s alkaloids stay in your blood?
DMT is mostly gone within a day. THH is the slowest alkaloid measured. By e-lactancia’s own rule, it can take about 2 and a half days to fall too low to matter.
Our brew is 2 plants, ayahuasca vine and chacruna leaf, as our services page lists. The leaf supplies the DMT. The vine supplies harmine, harmaline and THH. They keep your gut and liver from breaking the DMT down before it can reach your brain.
A half-life is how long your body takes to clear half of a drug from your blood. We use 2 sources for human numbers, and they overlap. A 1999 study in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology tested 15 volunteers’ blood after each drank 2 mL of brew per kilogram of body weight. A 2022 Journal of Clinical Medicine review averaged the half-lives from earlier human studies, the 1999 study among them.
| Alkaloid | 1999 study, 12 to 14 volunteers | 2022 review |
|---|---|---|
| DMT | 4.3 hours | 2.2 hours |
| Harmine | 1.9 hours | 1.9 hours |
| THH | 8.9 hours | 6.12 hours |
e-lactancia lists DMT at 1.5 to 4.3 hours and harmine and harmaline at 2.1 to 5.5 hours. It builds its wait on the top of that range.
We part ways with e-lactancia on 1 point. It reached 2 days by taking 7 half-lives of 5.5 hours. It calls that the longest published half-life for DMT or any harmala alkaloid. Its own entry counts THH as a harmala alkaloid. And the 1999 study it cites put THH’s average half-life at 8.9 hours. Run e-lactancia’s 7-half-life rule on that and you get 62 hours, about 2 and a half days. That’s an average across 14 people, and their results spread widely.
5 half-lives clear about 97% of a dose. e-lactancia treats 7 as the point where blood levels are too low to matter. The table shows how far the wait moves with the number you start from.
| Half-life you count from | 5 half-lives | 7 half-lives |
|---|---|---|
| DMT, 2.2 hours (2022 review) | 11 hours | 15 hours |
| e-lactancia’s figure, 5.5 hours | 28 hours | 38.5 hours, which e-lactancia calls 2 days |
| THH, 6.12 hours (2022 review) | 31 hours | 43 hours |
| THH, 8.9 hours (1999 study) | 44 hours | 62 hours |
Every row is blood math. Milk can carry more or less of a drug than blood does, and for this brew nobody has checked. Ceremony brews vary too. Ours isn’t lab-tested for alkaloids, so nobody can tell you the exact amount in a cup. What the table does settle is the size of the guess: across its rows, the wait runs from 11 to 62 hours.
Why a 10-day retreat means pouring your milk away for 7 to 9 days
The clock restarts every time you drink. With ceremonies on nights 2, 4, 7 and 9, the waits leave little room between them. Even at e-lactancia’s unrounded 38.5 hours, your milk spends nearly 7 days inside them.
On a ceremony night here, first cups are poured from about 8:15 PM. A second cup is offered around 10 PM. Counting from 10 PM, the gaps to the next ceremony’s first cup run 46 hours, 70 hours and 46 hours.
| Ceremony | Hours to the next cup | Wait over first, at 38.5 hours? | At 2 full days? | At 62 hours (THH)? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Night 2 | 46 | Yes, for about 8 hours | No | No |
| Night 4 | 70 | Yes, for about 32 hours | Yes, for about 22 hours | Yes, for about 8 hours |
| Night 7 | 46 | Yes, for about 8 hours | No | No |
| Night 9 | None | Over around 12:30 PM on day 11 | Over around 10 PM on day 11 | Over around midday on day 12 |
| Milk poured away in all | About 7 days | About 8 days | About 9 days |
Add it up. From the first cup on night 2, a nursing mother would pour her milk away for about 7 days at e-lactancia’s exact 38.5 hours. Round up to 2 days, as e-lactancia does, and it’s about 8. By the THH figure, it’s about 9. Her baby would need stored milk or formula for all of it.
The baby wouldn’t be with her anyway. Most guests spend 12 to 14 days away from home once travel is added. Phones stay locked apart from half an hour on Day 5. e-lactancia’s entry adds that during a retreat there are times when a parent can’t care for a baby properly. And CDC’s travel guidance notes that expressing milk while you’re away from your child helps keep up your supply.
So the real question is whether your baby can go 2 weeks without nursing, and whether your supply would come back. We’d rather you answer that at home, on your own timeline, than mid-retreat with a pump. That’s why we ask you to wait until you’ve weaned.
What if you’ve already had ayahuasca while nursing?
Stop nursing from that dose and feed your baby stored breast milk or formula until the wait is over. Keep pumping or hand-expressing on your usual schedule, and pour that milk away.
That’s e-lactancia’s advice. Its wait is about 2 days after 1 dose. Counting from THH’s 8.9-hour average puts it nearer 62 hours, and that’s an average: some people clear THH more slowly. If you drank more than once, count from your last cup, since that dose clears last.
e-lactancia also advises against sharing a bed with your baby while the drug is in your system. Don’t care for your baby alone until the effects have fully worn off and you’ve slept. Hand the night feeds to another adult.
Tell your baby’s doctor what you drank and when, and ask how long to wait before nursing again. If your baby nursed after you drank, watch closely and ask the doctor how long to keep watching. Call the doctor right away if your baby is unusually sleepy, feeds poorly, can’t settle, vomits, has diarrhea, trembles or feels hot. In the US, Poison Help is free and open 24 hours at 1-800-222-1222. Elsewhere, call your local poison center. Call emergency services if your baby is hard to wake, has a seizure or struggles to breathe.
Some Santo Daime families give babies the brew, and that still isn’t safety data
In some Santo Daime families, babies get the brew directly, by the drop, and other parents choose not to give it. That shows a practice and a belief. It doesn’t show what the doses do, because nobody has measured that either.
In a 2011 paper in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, a Santo Daime mother described how children in her church drink. Babies take the brew by the drop, squeezed into the mouth from a cotton ball. Children aged 1 to 3 drink the dregs at the bottom of a glass. She doubted that came to 1 milliliter. Her own daughter had her first drop 5 hours after birth.
Brazil’s national drug policy council, CONAD, left that choice to families in a 2010 resolution. Parents decide for children under 18. Pregnant women decide how far they take part, with a duty to protect the unborn child’s development. The resolution’s reasons start with the lack of enough scientific evidence. It also points to long traditional use that hasn’t shown harm. It doesn’t mention breastfeeding.
e-lactancia also looked at reports from Indigenous communities where the brew is traditional. It calls 3 accounts deficient, the 2011 paper among them. Beyond those, it found no medical or anthropological report that properly covers use and effects in nursing mothers, children or pregnant women in those communities.
Our healers work in the mestizo tradition of Loreto, not in Santo Daime, and we don’t judge the church’s choices. With no data on milk, we hold the line at weaning.
Postpartum depression, antidepressants and our screening
Postpartum depression doesn’t rule you out by itself. The antidepressant you take for it might, and a history of postpartum psychosis does.
Our team reviews depression case by case. Psychosis from any cause sits on our list of 15 automatic no’s, and so does bipolar I disorder. A past episode of postpartum psychosis counts. Active suicidal thoughts with a plan or intent are also an automatic no.
SSRIs such as sertraline and escitalopram have to be stopped at least 6 weeks before your first ceremony. Fluoxetine needs 8, and SNRIs 6 or more. Our doctor and your own prescriber supervise the taper together. If your prescriber thinks the taper is unsafe, you wait for a later retreat. The reasons behind each wait are in our medication guide.
The months after a birth are a poor time to rush that decision. Plan any taper with your prescriber around your recovery, then pick a retreat date that fits it.
If you’re having thoughts of harming yourself or your baby, get help now. If either of you is in immediate danger, call 911 in the US or your local emergency number. You can also call or text 988 in the US, or call or text the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline at 1-833-852-6262, 24 hours a day.
The yellow fever shot is a breastfeeding question too
CDC recommends the yellow fever vaccine for travelers 9 months and older going anywhere in Loreto, the region that includes Iquitos. Its guidance for breastfeeding travelers lists breastfeeding as a precaution against that shot.
3 babies fed only breast milk by mothers who’d had the vaccine got brain inflammation linked to it. All 3 were under 1 month old when exposed. Until there’s more data, CDC says to avoid giving the shot to breastfeeding travelers. If a nursing mother can’t avoid or delay the trip, CDC recommends the vaccine. Some experts then advise pumping and discarding milk for at least 2 weeks after the shot.
So the order is weaning, then the shot, then the flight. Our Iquitos travel guide covers the rest. It also explains why the shot should come 2 weeks or more before your flight.
How to plan a retreat around weaning in 2026
Pick a retreat date that falls after your last feed. Then let any medication taper and the yellow fever shot set the order of everything else.
Weaned means your child no longer nurses or drinks your pumped milk. How long weaning takes depends on your child’s age and how often they still feed. Map it out with your pediatrician or a lactation consultant before you pick a date.
We publish retreat dates a year in advance, so you can see which ones fall after your planned last feed. Peak dates, June to September, are often full 5 to 7 months before they start.
| When | What to do | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Before you apply | Plan weaning with your pediatrician or a lactation consultant. Pick a date after your expected last feed | Dates are published a year out |
| On your application | Tell us when you stopped nursing. List every medication you take, for postpartum mood or anything else | A doctor reads every application |
| At least 6 weeks before your first ceremony (8 for fluoxetine) | Be fully off any SSRI, tapered with your prescriber and our doctor | Our taper rule |
| After your last feed, 2 weeks or more before your flight | Get the yellow fever shot | CDC lists breastfeeding as a precaution |
| The days before you travel | Rest, and arrive in Iquitos a day early | Our lead healer may ask a guest who’s short on sleep to sit that night out |
If you’re nursing now, start with a weaning plan and a retreat date that falls after it. Ayahuasca and breastfeeding can share a year of your life. They shouldn’t share the same weeks.
FAQs
How long after ayahuasca can you breastfeed?
e-lactancia, a lactation-safety database, puts the wait at about 2 days after 1 dose, from 7 half-lives of 5.5 hours. A 1999 study put THH, the slowest alkaloid, at 8.9 hours on average, so the same rule gives about 62 hours. Some people clear it more slowly than that. Nobody has measured these alkaloids in milk, so every number here is an estimate.
Is there any research on ayahuasca and breastfeeding?
Not on milk itself. e-lactancia found no published study of DMT, harmine or THH in human milk as of July 2023. A lab project funded by a Brazilian research foundation began in January 2026 to test how DMT and harmine cross human breast cells. As of October 2026, we haven’t found its results.
Does the ayahuasca and breastfeeding rule change if you pump and discard?
No. Our published rule lists breastfeeding as an absolute stop and names no exception for pumping. Across our 4 ceremony nights, you’d pour milk away for 7 to 9 days, and you’d be 12 to 14 days from your baby. If you weaned recently, say so on your application.
Can my partner go to a retreat while I’m still breastfeeding?
Yes, if your partner passes the same screening every guest goes through. The breastfeeding stop applies to the parent who’s nursing. Expect 1 parent to be away from home 12 to 14 days with travel.
Can you get the yellow fever vaccine while breastfeeding?
CDC lists breastfeeding as a precaution for this shot. Until there’s more data, it says not to give it to breastfeeding travelers unless the trip can’t be skipped or delayed. In 3 reported cases, babies under 1 month old fed only breast milk got brain inflammation linked to the vaccine. If you’re coming to Iquitos after weaning, get the shot after your last feed and 2 weeks or more before your flight.
Can you come to a retreat while taking medication for postpartum depression?
Not while you’re on an SSRI or SNRI. You’d need to be off it for at least 6 weeks before your first ceremony, or 8 for fluoxetine, in a taper your prescriber and our doctor supervise. Never stop an antidepressant on your own or rush a taper to fit a retreat date. Depression is reviewed case by case, but past psychosis of any kind, postpartum included, is an automatic no.
Do Santo Daime mothers give ayahuasca to their babies?
Some do, and other parents choose not to. In a 2011 journal paper, a Santo Daime mother said babies take the brew by the drop, from a cotton ball. Brazil’s 2010 drug policy resolution leaves that choice to parents, and it notes a lack of enough scientific evidence. No published study has followed what those doses do to infants.