It’s a common myth that breastfeeding mothers need to maintain the ‘perfect’ diet in order to make quality breast milk.
Despite what a breastfeeding mother eats, her breast milk contains all the nutrients required for a baby to grow and thrive in the first 6 months of life.
Even so, it’s still important to maintain a healthy diet during the postpartum period, to help your body recover, post pregnancy and birth, and to avoid postnatal depletion.
This article explores the ways in which maternal nutrition does or does not affect breast milk production and breastfeeding in general.
Here are 10 things you need to know about the links between diet and breastfeeding:
#1. Your nutritional needs increase while breastfeeding
First and foremost, it’s important to understand that nutritional needs increase for breastfeeding women. This is because the bodies of lactating women use more energy to produce a breast milk supply.
On average, exclusively breastfeeding mothers burn around 500 extra calories per day; for this reason, breastfeeding women need to include more calories in their daily dietary intake.
Making breast milk uses extra calories and helps lose pregnancy weight. So, when breastfeeding, you will most likely feel hungrier than if you weren’t breastfeeding. If you eat according to your hunger, you will most likely get the extra calories you need.
It’s recommended by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development that breastfeeding mothers increase their calorie intake by around 500 calories per day, optimally choosing extra nutrient rich foods. Good options include lean meat, whole grains, leafy green vegetables, nuts and seeds.
For more information you can read BellyBelly’s article What Foods Should l Eat While Breastfeeding?
#2. Breast milk supply is mostly unaffected by maternal diet
For the most part, the types of food or the amount of food a breastfeeding mother consumes doesn’t affect her milk supply.
The main determinant of milk supply is how often and well your breasts are drained. The more often your breasts are well drained, the more milk they make.
There is also no evidence that drinking extra fluids increases a mother’s breast milk supply. It is generally advised to drink fluids according to your thirst. Highly caffeinated beverages, such as energy drinks, are not recommended for breastfeeding mothers.
It is important to note that drinking alcohol can negatively affect your milk supply and let-down reflex. If you chose to drink alcohol, you should download the Australian Breastfeeding Association’s FeedSafe app.
#3. Human milk composition is largely unaffected by maternal diet
The overall fat, lactose and protein content of breast milk is not affected by your diet.
Because the energy content of breast milk is determined by the concentrations of these macronutrients, the energy content of your breast milk is largely unaffected by your diet.
According to Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), ‘Even mothers in a poor nutritional state are able to produce breast milk of adequate quality’.
#4. Eating oily fish is good for your baby’s brain development
The overall amount of fat you eat does not affect the overall amount of fat in your milk. The types of fats you eat, however, have some effect on the types of fats in your milk. If you’d like more long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (e.g. omega 3 fatty acids) in your breast milk, you can include in your diet more of the healthy foods that contain them. These healthy fats are important for brain and eye development in your baby.
Good sources of omega-3 fatty acids are:
- Oily fish (e.g. salmon, mackerel, sardines)
- Nuts and seeds (e.g. flaxseed, walnuts)
- Red meat
- Dairy products.
For more information, you can read BellyBelly’s article DHA While Breastfeeding | Health Benefits Of Omega-3.
#5. Minerals in your breast milk are largely unrelated to your diet
Minerals are largely unrelated to a breastfeeding mother’s diet.
Your diet can, however, affect the concentration of iodine in your milk. For this reason, Australia’s NHMRC recommends pregnant and breastfeeding women take an iodine supplement.
There is usually adequate iodine in your prenatal vitamins.
#6. Supplementation might be needed in a vegetarian or vegan diet
A mother’s diet can affect the concentration of vitamins in her breast milk. The average Australian diet, however, will typically supply you with adequate amounts of most vitamins. You can safely follow a vegetarian diet or vegan diet while breastfeeding but you should be aware that you might need dietary supplements throughout the lactation period, for your health and your baby’s.
The two vitamins that might require supplementation are:
Vitamin B12
Mothers following vegan or vegetarian diets could be deficient in vitamin B12. This would also make their breast milk deficient in vitamin B12.
Speak with your obstetrician or GP if you think you might need vitamin B12 supplementation.
Vitamin D
Regular sunlight exposure helps reduce the risk of vitamin D deficiency. The safe exposure time for children is unknown.
Breastfed babies particularly at risk of vitamin D deficiency are those:
- Who are dark-skinned
- Whose mother is vitamin D deficient
- Who receive too little sunlight (e.g. by living at higher latitudes).
Speak with your obstetrician or paediatrician if you think you might need a vitamin D supplement.
#7. A small percentage of babies react to foods in your diet
Generally speaking, there are no particular foods or food groups breastfeeding mothers need to avoid altogether.
A small percentage of breastfed infants, however, will show signs of food sensitivity by reacting to something in their mother’s diet through her breast milk.
In most cases, though, babies with food sensitivity do not usually show any significant signs of it while being exclusively breastfed, but rather begin to show more significant signs once they start to eat the offending food(s).
If your baby has a medically diagnosed food sensitivity (particularly if it’s severe), you can continue breastfeeding your baby but you should remove the causal food(s) from your diet.
If you are concerned your baby might have a food sensitivity, seek advice from a dietitian who has an interest in breastfeeding and food allergies, or from a paediatric allergist immunologist.
For more information about food sensitivities, visit the Allergy and Immunology section of the Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital website or the Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy website.
#8. Your diet influences your gut bacteria
More research is being done about the importance of the types of bacteria in the gut and their importance in overall health.
Babies get more than just nutrients from breast milk. They also get prebiotics, probiotics and a host of other important immune protective factors.
If you have more beneficial bacteria in your gut, this means you could pass on more beneficial bacteria (probiotics) to your baby through your milk.
#9. Breast milk is a dynamic substance that changes to meet your baby’s needs
Breast milk constantly changes to meet your baby’s needs. It even changes from the start of a feed to the end of the feed. The milk made by a mother who has a premature baby is also different from milk from a mother with a full term baby.
Your milk even differs depending on whether your baby is a boy or a girl.
You can read more about this in BellyBelly’s article Do Mothers Make Different Breastmilk For Boys And Girls?
#10. Your breast milk is important for your baby
The average Australian diet provides most mothers with ample nutrients – everything that’s necessary for their breast milk to meet all their babies’ needs, and more.
You don’t need the ‘perfect’ diet to make quality breast milk. But eating well will make you feel much better, and that’s important, too.
