We report the case of an infant who was breastfed while his mother was receiving low doses of morphine. Morphine concentration in his serum was in the analgesic range (4 ng/ml), while concentrations in the milk varied substantially in three samples collected within 2 hours (10, 100, 12 ng/ml). The calculated dose that the infant must have received to achieve the observed serum concentration had to be between 0.8 to 12% of maternal dose, based on reference literature values of clearance and bioavailability. The current perception that maternal morphine exposure is safe for the breastfed infant is based on a 50 year old data which were determined by an analytical method 1000 fold less sensitive than the present HPLC, thus leading to a likely erroneous conclusion.