Diet For Breastfeeding Mothers - Essential To Remain Healthy After Having A Baby

By Author: Payal Bhatnagar
Total Articles: 11
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Diet for Breastfeeding mothers, diet during pregnancy, healthy breastfeeding diet, diet for feeding mothers

Diet for Breastfeeding mothers is in a lot of ways just like your diet during pregnancy - with much more relaxed rules. That’s because even though it is said that ‘you are what you eat’ - your breast milk isn’t. The basic Fat-Protein-Carb combination of human milk isn’t solely dependent on what one eats - even women who aren’t eating a nutritious diet can feed their babies well. This can be explained by the fact that for a mother, whose nutrient-consumption isn’t sufficient for the production of healthy milk, has her body tap into individual stores for fuelling milk production.

Nevertheless, you should still go for plenty of nutrient-dense foods and should stay away from less healthy ones, to remain healthy.

How Many Calories Does your body Need?

Even though the body can make milk on a less-sufficient diet, it is strictly recommended that it shouldn’t. The objective while you’re nursing ...
... should never be to run down your body’s store of nutrients - that’s too unsafe for your short, as well as long-term, health. It may also shortchange you on much-needed physical energy and possibly disrupt your milk supply, as well.

The significance of calorie count is unquestionable, but you won't have to count them - unless, of course, your doctor has recommended you to do so. Milk production burns 500 calories per day — the same of what you’d burn down on a five mile run. Provided you remained within your doctor’s ‘recommended weight gain’ limit throughout pregnancy - and don’t now have extensive fat reserves you’d like to burn - you might even need to increase your intake by 500 calories everyday to ensure a healthy breastfeeding period (just one of the various benefits of breastfeeding!).

What to Have When You’re Breastfeeding?

One should have a healthy breastfeeding diet. The following is what you should aim to consume on a daily basis to make sure you’re getting the nutrients you need:

Protein: Three servings
Calcium: Five servings (or 1,000 mg—particularly important as breastfeeding draws from your Calcium reserves)
Iron-rich foods: One or more servings
Vitamin C: Two servings
Green leafy as well as yellow vegetables/fruits: Three to four servings
Other fruits and veggies: One or more servings
Whole grains and complex carbohydrates: Three or more servings
High-Fat foods: Small amounts (you don't need as much as you did throughout pregnancy)
Omega 3s: Two to three servings every week, to promote the baby's brain development
Prenatal Vitamin: Everyday

How Much Water to Drink?

Try to have at least eight glasses of water on a daily basis — particularly in the weeks after birth, as it will help your body to regain its health. To make sure you’re getting an adequate amount of it, a good rule of thumb is to drink a glass of water at every nursing session.

Apart from the above, the diet for feeding mothers should also include nutritional supplement-powders available in the market - containing all vitamins and minerals essential during this period - to be mixed with milk while consuming.