Breastfeeding Nutrition 101: Nutrition for Nursing Mothers
As a nursing mom, you need to be extra cautious with your nutrition and nutritional plans while breastfeeding. With breast milk being your little one’s primary source of nutrition essential for her development, one of your fundamental goals is to make your everyday nutrition plan as healthy and full as possible.
While your body diligently produces breast milk, you’ll need sufficient calories and nutrients to fully sustain both your needs and your nursing child’s as well. What you consume while breastfeeding becomes the key to your nutrition as you provide for your baby’s needs. Therefore, it’s important to continue making healthy choices as you journey toward motherhood. In this blog post, your fellow intuitive moms will help you recognize that:
Mothers and babies form an inseparable biological and social unit; the health and nutrition of one group cannot be divorced from the health and nutrition of the other.
– World Health Organization
The human body is indeed amazing!
Mom, do you know that your body is getting ready for the production of milk even before you give birth? As you go through pregnancy, you experience various changes in your body and these allow your mammary glands to make milk and cause them to feel fuller and more tender.
Once your precious one is born and starts nursing, the act of suckling stimulates the release of hormones in your body that causes your breasts to produce and release milk. As your baby suckles, a message will be sent to your brain that then signals the hormones oxytocin and prolactin (Prolactin causes your alveoli to make milk by taking nutrients like proteins and sugars from the blood supply and then turning them into breast milk. Oxytocin makes the milk flow for the current feed and helps the baby get the milk easily.) The passing of the milk down the ducts is called the let-down reflex, and it is experienced in various ways such as:
- When milk is dripping from breasts
- When you feel a tingling sensation, tightening of the breasts, dull ache, and a full sensation (after the first week of nursing) in your breasts
- When your baby begins to suck and swallow actively
- Milk may drip from the opposite breast
- When you experience uterine cramping after putting the baby to the breast after a few days after your child’s birth
- When you feel thirsty
The production of milk will then vary according to your baby’s needs. Every time you feed your baby, your body diligently works to make more milk for the next feeding. By letting your baby nurse as often and as long as she needs and wants to, you are helping your body in making more milk.
For the first two to three days, a thick yellowish to orange fluid will come out of the breasts. This fluid is called colostrum, which is very nutritious and contains antibodies that boost your baby’s immune system.
Breast milk provides every nutrient your baby needs for the first 6 months of her life and the content of your milk (fat and calorie) changes over time while feeding in order to accommodate your little one’s needs.
That’s incredibly amazing!
A newborn baby has only three demands. They are warmth in the arms of its mother, food from her breasts, and security in the knowledge of her presence. Breastfeeding satisfies all three.
– Grantly Dick-Read
You’ve likely heard about the wonders that breastfeeding can give to your baby, but did you know that breastfeeding also has benefits for your health as well? In this section, we’ll delve into the amazing benefits that you and your baby can get from breastfeeding.
BENEFITS FOR BABY:
- The mother-infant bonding that happens during breastfeeding is essential for baby’s security, attachment, and sense of trust
- Breastfeeding builds a stronger immune system
- It lowers the risk of infant mortality
- It lowers the risk of developing:
- Inflammatory bowel diseases
- Gastrointestinal infections (diarrhea and vomiting)
- Ear infections and respiratory infections
- Asthma
- Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)
- Childhood leukemia
- Breast milk is critical in compensating for developmental delays in the immune function of the baby
- It lessens the likelihood of colds and respiratory illnesses like pneumonia, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and whooping cough
- It decreases cases of bacterial meningitis
- It promotes better vision and prevents prematurity and retinopathy
- It lessens ear infections, especially those that damage hearing
BENEFITS FOR MOM:
- Breastfeeding helps support quicker recovery after delivery
- Breastfeeding lessens postpartum bleeding, urinary tract infections (UTI), and anemia
- It lessens the risk of postpartum depression
- Oxytocin and Prolactin, the soothing hormones released while breastfeeding, promote positive feelings and reduce stress.
- It increases feelings of calmness
- Breastfeeding moms are able to read their baby’s cues through constant interaction. This leads to the baby’s trust and later shapes the baby’s early behavior
- In the long run, breastfeeding may decrease the risk for:
- Breast and Ovarian cancer
- Endometriosis
- Rheumatoid Arthritis and Lupus
- Osteoporosis
- Diabetes and hypertension
- Other Cardiovascular Diseases
Mother’s milk, time-tested for millions of years, is the best nutrient for babies because it is nature’s perfect food.
– Robert S. Mendelsohn
BREASTFEEDING NUTRITION101
Motherhood is indeed a lifelong journey. After giving birth, you’re not yet done eating for two. Your breastfeeding nutrition will be quite similar to your pregnancy nutrition, but with much more relaxed rules. (Lots of your favorite foods are back on your menu! Yay Right!?)
Even though the basic combination of human milk (fat, protein, carbs) isn’t entirely dependent on what foods and drinks you consume, as your body can tap into its own stores to fuel milk production; You should still aim for plenty of nutrient-dense foods and steer clear of less healthy ones. This is to make sure that your body gets what it needs in order for it to function healthily, which will affect how you bond with your baby and cope with the demands of everyday life.
So, how can you get the right nutrition as you provide food for your precious one?
Check Out These Easy & Practical Breastfeeding Nutrition Tips
A Message To Our Intuitive Moms
Every motherhood journey is unique, yet equally beautiful. This is true even for every breastfeeding story. While other moms consider breastfeeding as an empowering and joyous phase, others are filled with fear, worry, and anxiety because of the expectations around them.
Breastfeeding isn’t for everyone and not everyone is able to do so; and no matter where you stand on the continuum of breastfeeding, we’d like to salute you for simply being a mom.
We’re also here to tell you that:
Breastfeeding is not just about milk.
It’s about nourishing your baby as she lays safely in your arms, the two of you gazing softly at each other’s eyes in pure wonder.
It is an indispensable connection. It is a touch of love. It’s a connection of two souls.
It is gently cradling your precious one assuring her that you’ll keep her safe from any harm.
That you’ll be her protector, her source of guidance and refuge. Her mom.
You can do that no matter how you feed your baby.
So, no matter how you provide nourishment to your little one, it’s the love and the security that you give her that she’ll carry as she makes her own path.
