Summary
Five, lactating, healthy white women were treated with a single 20 mg tablet of zolpidem 3–4 days after the delivery of a full term baby. The drug was administered at 20.00 h, 30 min after dinner, and milk samples were collected before and 3, 13 and 16 h. Venous blood 5 ml was taken before and 1.5, 3, 13, 16 h after zolpidem administration.
The apparent elimination half life, estimated from plasma zolpidem concentrations was 2.6 h. The amount of zolpidem excreted in the milk at 3 h ranged between 0.76 and 3.88 µg, which represented 0.004 to 0.019% of the administered dose; no detectable (below 0.5 ng/ml) zolpidem was found in the milk at subsequent sampling times. The ratio of the zolpidem concentrations in breast milk and plasma at 3 h was 0.13. The apparent breast milk clearance of zolpidem, calculated from the ratio of the total amount of zolpidem excreted in milk to its AUC in plasma was 1.48 ml/h.
The results show that the excretion of zolpidem in human milk is very low (below 0.02%) and that most of it takes place during the first 3 h following drug intake.
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Pons, G., Francoual, C., Guillet, P. et al. Zolpidem excretion in breast milk. Eur J Clin Pharmacol 37, 245–248 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00679778
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00679778