Can women who received postpartum varicella vaccination breastfeed their infants?
Yes, neither inactivated nor most live vaccines (including varicella vaccine) administered to a lactating woman affect the safety of breastfeeding for mothers or infants. Breastfeeding does not adversely affect immunization and is not a contraindication for vaccines. NOTE: Vaccinia (smallpox) vaccine is the exception to this rule; vaccinia vaccine is contraindicated for breastfeeding mothers. For varicella, a study involving 12 women who received single-antigen varicella vaccine while breastfeeding indicated no evidence of VZV DNA either in several hundred breast milk samples collected or in the infants tested after both vaccine doses. Another study did not detect varicella gene sequences in the post-vaccination breast milk samples.
