Olipop is generally considered safe to drink while breastfeeding, but a few ingredients deserve a closer look before you make it a daily habit. The drink contains botanical extracts, prebiotic fibers, and sweeteners that each carry a different level of evidence when it comes to nursing mothers and infants.
What’s Actually in Olipop
Every can of Olipop contains carbonated water, the brand’s proprietary OLISMART blend (a mix of prebiotic fibers and botanical extracts), cassava root syrup, fruit juice concentrate, and stevia leaf. The OLISMART blend includes ingredients like chicory root inulin, Jerusalem artichoke inulin, nopal cactus, marshmallow root, kudzu root, and calendula. None of the flavors contain high fructose corn syrup or artificial sweeteners.
Each can has about 2 to 5 grams of sugar and 9 grams of prebiotic fiber, making it a very different nutritional profile from a regular soda. The amounts of each botanical extract per can are relatively small, which matters when evaluating safety.
Stevia and Cassava Root Syrup
Stevia is the primary sweetener in Olipop. The FDA classifies rebaudioside A, the purified compound extracted from stevia leaves, as “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS) for use in foods. No studies have specifically tracked whether stevia components pass into breast milk, and no adverse effects in breastfed infants have been documented.
That said, some health experts suggest that breastfeeding mothers may want to limit nonnutritive sweeteners because their effects on nursing infants remain unstudied. This caution is strongest for mothers of newborns or preterm infants, whose digestive systems are still maturing. For mothers of older, healthy infants, the risk from the amount of stevia in one can of Olipop appears low.
Cassava root syrup is a natural sweetener derived from the cassava plant. It functions similarly to other plant-based syrups and has no known concerns specific to breastfeeding, though formal studies in lactating women haven’t been conducted.
Marshmallow Root and Other Botanicals
Marshmallow root (Althaea officinalis) is one of the more well-documented botanicals in the OLISMART blend. According to the National Institutes of Health’s Drugs and Lactation Database, no components of marshmallow root have been found to pass into breast milk in harmful amounts. The NIH notes it is “unlikely to be harmful to the breastfed infant” and carries GRAS status in amounts typically found in foods.
A small clinical study evaluated a lactation tea containing marshmallow root and found no differences in infant digestive, respiratory, or skin-related side effects compared to a control group. Growth parameters of the breastfed infants were also the same in both groups.
Calendula, kudzu root, and nopal cactus have less available safety data for breastfeeding specifically. None of these ingredients have documented adverse effects during lactation, but none have been formally studied in nursing mothers either. The quantities in a single can of Olipop are small enough that risk is likely minimal, though certainty is impossible without direct research.
Prebiotic Fiber and Your Baby’s Digestion
Olipop contains 9 grams of prebiotic fiber per can, primarily from chicory root and Jerusalem artichoke inulin. In your own gut, prebiotics feed beneficial bacteria and can cause gas or bloating, especially if you’re not used to them. If you’ve never consumed much prebiotic fiber, starting with a full can could leave you uncomfortable.
The fiber itself doesn’t pass into breast milk. What changes is the composition of bacteria in your gut, which can indirectly influence your overall health and, to some degree, the microbial environment your baby encounters. There’s no strong evidence that a mother’s prebiotic intake causes gas or colic in breastfed infants, but some mothers report that changes in their diet correlate with fussiness. If you notice your baby seems gassier after you start drinking Olipop regularly, it’s worth scaling back to see if that’s the connection.
Watch the Caffeine in Certain Flavors
Most Olipop flavors are caffeine-free, but four are not. Vintage Cola, Doctor Goodwin, and Cherry Cola each contain 50 mg of caffeine per can, while Ridge Rush contains 60 mg. For context, a standard 8-ounce cup of coffee has roughly 95 mg.
Caffeine does pass into breast milk, typically peaking about one to two hours after you drink it. Most breastfeeding guidelines consider up to 200 to 300 mg of caffeine per day to be safe. A single caffeinated Olipop falls well within that range, but you’ll want to factor in any coffee, tea, or chocolate you’re also consuming throughout the day. Newborns metabolize caffeine much more slowly than older infants, so if your baby is under three months old, keeping total caffeine intake on the lower end is a reasonable approach.
If you want to avoid the caffeine question entirely, stick with any of Olipop’s fruit-flavored varieties like Strawberry Vanilla, Orange Squeeze, or Lemon Lime.
A Practical Approach
Olipop is closer to a flavored sparkling water than a traditional soda in terms of sugar content, and its ingredients carry GRAS status or have long histories of food use. The main unknowns are the botanical extracts, which simply haven’t been studied in breastfeeding women. The amounts in each can are small, and no adverse effects have been reported.
If you’re drinking one can a day as a soda replacement, that’s a reasonable choice for most breastfeeding mothers of healthy, full-term infants. If your baby is premature or a newborn, being more conservative with any product containing understudied botanicals or nonnutritive sweeteners makes sense. Starting with half a can and watching for any changes in your baby’s feeding behavior or digestion gives you a simple way to gauge tolerance before making it a regular part of your routine.