Changes

Exposure to family members or the others who provide care to the patient is defined as medical exposures as there is direct benefits to them, but dose constraints should be established for use in defining the protection policy for visitors to patient and family members at home when a nuclear medicine patient is discharged from hospital. Such groups may include children. ICRP has not previously recommended values for such constraints, but a value of 5 mSv per episode for an adult (i.e. for the duration of a given release of a patient after therapy) is reasonable.<ref>Radiation Dose Limits for Individual Members of the Public[https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/cfr/part020/part020-1301.html]</ref> The constraint needs to be used flexibly. For example, higher doses may well be appropriate for the parents of very sick children or for an elderly who would like to take care of his/her sick spouse. Young children, infants, and visitors not engaged in direct comforting or care should be treated as members of the public, who are subject to the public dose limit of 1 mSv/year.

===Breastfed babies===

In nuclear medicine, varying amounts of radiopharmaceuticals are retained in the patients for varying periods of time. Also, some radiopharmaceuticals can be transferred to breast milk and passed from mother to child during breast feeding. As a result, both the mother, and her breast milk, can be a source of radiation to the baby. Non-urgent tests should be postponed until the breastfeeding period is completed.<ref>Radiation Protection of Patients[https://www.iaea.org/resources/rpop]</ref>