Can you get a tattoo while pregnant?

Why the advice is to wait

A tattoo is a controlled wound, held open for an hour or several, in a room full of other people. That is manageable in ordinary circumstances and it is the part clinicians are most willing to talk about, because infection is the one risk here with real evidence behind it. The rest of the list is made of unknowns, and unknowns are the reason the guidance is so uniform. Nobody is claiming tattoo ink harms a pregnancy. Nobody can show that it does not.

There is a second reason that gets less attention. If a tattoo does become infected, the decisions about how to treat it during pregnancy are narrower and they belong to your doctor. Having fewer options available is a sound argument for not inviting the problem in the first place. Ask your midwife, GP or obstetrician what they advise for you, and treat what a studio tells you as a policy answer rather than a medical one.

What people are actually worried about

• Infection at the tattoo site, which is a break in the skin kept open for hours and then healed over two weeks.
• Bloodborne infection, hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV among them, if equipment or technique is poor.
• Pigment. Tattoo inks are not regulated as medicines in most countries and their components have not been studied in pregnancy.
• Treating a problem. Choices about antibiotics and pain relief in pregnancy belong to your doctor, and having fewer of them is a reason to wait.
• Comfort and blood pressure. Long sessions, low blood sugar and lying flat on your back get harder as the pregnancy goes on.

What the studio will say when you ask

Most shops will say no, and the better ones will say it before you have finished the sentence. The policy sits in their consent form, which asks you to declare pregnancy, and in the terms their insurer sets. An artist who tattoos a client who has declared a pregnancy is taking on a liability for a piece of decoration, and almost none of them will. Some studios accept a letter from a doctor. Many have a blanket rule and will not look at one.

What you can get is a date. Artists worth booking are often months out anyway, so a consultation now and a session next year costs you nothing but patience. Ask how deposits are handled if the date has to move again, ask what their policy is on how long after the birth they will tattoo, and get the answer before you pay anything.

Lower back tattoos and the epidural question

This is the one concern with an actual medical literature behind it, and it is narrower than the internet suggests. The documented reason to avoid putting a needle through tattooed skin is skin that is freshly tattooed, inflamed or infected, which is a reason to decline any injection through that area. A long healed lumbar tattoo is a different situation, and anaesthetic practice generally does not treat it as a bar on its own. Where there is a gap in the design, many anaesthetists will use it.

The decision belongs to the anaesthetist in front of you on the day, and hospital practice and individual clinicians vary. So the useful move is timing: mention the tattoo at an antenatal appointment, not in the middle of labour, so it can be a short conversation rather than a surprise. If you already have ink over your lower spine there is nothing to undo, and nothing on this page should be read as clearance for your own case.

Can you get a tattoo while breastfeeding?

The same shape of answer. Direct evidence is thin, the common advice is to wait, and the practical concern is infection rather than the ink. The reasoning usually given is that pigment stays in the dermis and the particles are too large to pass into milk, which is plausible and not well studied. What would reach a feed is a systemic infection, or the medication used to treat one, which is the part worth taking seriously. Your midwife, doctor or a lactation consultant can speak to your own case.

Then there is the unglamorous side. A new tattoo needs washing two or three times a day, no soaking, and no friction for a fortnight. A newborn needs both your hands at three in the morning. Studios differ on whether they will book you while you are feeding, and quite a few ask you to wait until you have stopped.

If you are breastfeeding and still want it booked

• Ask your midwife, doctor or a lactation consultant about your own case before you ask a studio.
• Expect some shops to decline regardless, and some to want a note from your doctor.
• Pick a placement a baby will not lie against. Outer thigh or calf rather than chest, sternum or inner arm.
• Avoid anywhere a carrier strap, a bra band or a feeding position rubs for the first two weeks.
• Work out who is holding the baby while you sit in a chair for three hours.

Your skin changes, and so does the design

Set the medical question aside for a moment, because there is an aesthetic argument for waiting and it rarely gets made. Skin over the stomach, hips, lower back and chest stretches during pregnancy, sometimes with striae cutting through it, and then changes again over the months after the birth as weight redistributes and breast tissue settles. A 1 mm fine line does not stretch evenly. Geometry that depended on symmetry is the worst case, because a mandala pulled 10 percent wider on one side reads as a mistake rather than as a change.

Artists see this constantly on navel and hip pieces tattooed in the year before a first pregnancy. Nothing can be done about a design that was already there, and a good artist can often rework it later. A design you have not had yet is a free decision, and the free decision is to put it somewhere stable or to wait until your body has stopped moving.

What to do with the idea in the meantime

Nine months is long enough to stop designing in a hurry, which is how most regrettable tattoos happen. Use it. Settle the subject, look at enough artists to find one whose linework you actually like rather than one with an opening next week, and book a consultation instead of a session. A waitlist that would normally annoy you is now working in your favour.

Studios differ on how long after the birth they will tattoo, and the sensible version of that question is about your own recovery rather than their rule. Wait until your postnatal check has happened, until your skin and weight have settled, and until you can realistically keep a healing tattoo clean. For most people that is months rather than weeks, and for anyone still feeding it is often longer.

A plan that does not involve sitting still

• Design it now and book it later. Most artists will happily discuss a piece they will tattoo next year.
• Test the placement with a water slide transfer printed at final size, and wear it for three days.
• Natural henna on unbroken skin is widely treated as low risk. So called black henna is not, and your midwife is the person to ask.
• Ask the studio in writing what their policy is after the birth, so the date is not a surprise.
• If you are feeding, choose the placement around how you hold the baby rather than around the drawing.