No matter how you feel about bottles & babies, sometimes it’s the mom who needs a little time to herself via a scrumptious bottle of Pinot Noir. While I’ve never subscribed to the ‘pump & dump’ method myself (because I haven’t had more than half a drink at a time in nearly two years), I know lots of moms who ditch their liquid gold for fear of feeding their baby spiked milk. There are lots of reasons why any alcohol in breast milk is not a good thing for your baby.

There’s a cool new product on the market that takes the questions out of nursing after drinking. Milkscreen was invented by moms Julie Jumonville and Elizabeth Smith to ease their own minds and the minds of other mothers.

The stick looks a little like a pregnancy test with a small pad at one end. You simply put a few drops of breastmilk on the pad, wait 2 minutes and if there’s a colour change your milk has alcohol in it. A few of us put Milkscreen to the test and it definitely works. After one drink, there was a slight change in colour. After two, a definite change. Dipped straight into the drink it was bright green immediately. (One of our reviewers is a chemist and couldn’t help herself.) We all loved the idea of using Milkscreen to determine how long it takes for a drink (or three, whatever your pleasure) to be out of your body, since everyone’s different, so you don’t have to test every time.

You can buy Milkscreen at various locations including their online store. They retail for approximately $20 for a box of 6.

Want to try it? We’ve got some to give away! To be entered in the random draw, email theopinionatedparent@gmail.com before midnight MST on 5/7/07 with MILKSCREEN in the subject line and give us one of the good reasons for testing your milk listed on the Milkscreen site. Congratulations Heather!